Software Engineer, Rendering & Animation Job at Figma in San Francisco

Overview

Figma is growing our team of passionate creatives and builders on a mission to make design accessible to all. Figma's platform helps teams bring ideas to life—whether you're brainstorming, creating a prototype, translating designs into code, or iterating with AI. From idea to product, Figma empowers teams to streamline workflows, move faster, and work together in real time from anywhere in the world. If you're excited to shape the future of design and collaboration, join us! Our Creation Engine teams work on core technologies powering our real-time, browser-based Figma Design and FigJam products. These teams work mostly (but not exclusively) on client-side code that runs in the browser. Under the hood, Figma shares a lot of similarities to a game engine. We develop this C++ / WebAssembly engine to ensure internal and external developers can rapidly build new products and features that are fast and reliable by default, and own areas such as our in-memory data model (SceneGraph), renderer, and multiplayer client / server protocols. Within Creation Engine, the Rendering & Animation team focuses on the lowest level of the stack, where we convert the SceneGraph into primitive rendering operations that are executed on the GPU using WebGL. Our team houses the company's expertise in rendering of 2D vector graphics, rendering algorithms, rendering APIs, and GPU profiling and optimization. Our mission is to make rendering performant, feature-rich, reliable, maintainable, and extendable across all products and surfaces. Rendering & Animation engineers use a combination of C++ and TypeScript for CPU-side code (to support our two renderers); our shaders are written in GLSL. The team recently completed a large project to replace our legacy rendering backend with a new one – "TinyGPU" – that is more modern, much smaller, and easier to work with. This project has laid the groundwork for a new era focused on feature expansion, performance optimization, advanced animation, and future product launches. Each new product at Figma pushes beyond our previous rendering assumptions, requiring constant innovation and visionary foundations. The Rendering & Animation team is looking for engineers with domain expertise in rendering algorithms and APIs, as well as both high- and low-level performance optimization. Experience relating to rendering of 2D vector graphics specifically is a plus, but not required. We are excited to explore the latest graphics technologies like WebGPU, and to develop and implement new algorithmic techniques for high-performance antialiasing. Figma is a highly collaborative organization and most projects are owned by small teams of 2-3 people. You\'ll form strong relationships with product managers and designers, and can expect to partner regularly with engineers and leaders beyond your immediate team. We strive to foster an inclusive culture that promotes equity and belonging, and use the following values to guide how we work together: communicate early and often, lift your team, focus on craftsmanship, and prioritize impact. You can learn more about our engineering values and how we developed them here. This is a full-time role that can be held from one of our US hubs or remotely in the United States.

Responsibilities

• Work closely with teammates and partners in Engineering, Product, Design, Marketing, User Research, and Data Science to build new features and achieve roadmap goals. We prioritize collaboration and cross-functional partnerships, so you won\'t operate in silos.
• What you\'ll do at Figma: collaborate to build features in line with product goals
• Some efforts you might impact include: creating and optimizing shaders to render blurs of primitive shapes in a single pass; improving how we order and batch draws to reduce draw calls and render target switches; developing and implementing faster approaches to anti-aliasing (an open area of research in 2D vector graphics); implementing performant animations using multiple layer caches for fast compositing.
• Drive guidance, quality, and standards for rendering at Figma, and explore opportunities that keep us on the bleeding edge of new capability and advancements.
• Be a mentor and provide thoughtful feedback to peers; benefit from mentorship opportunities yourself.
• Contribute to org-wide initiatives like new hire onboarding, interview process development, and Belonging / Equity / Inclusion efforts.
• Continue ramping and learning. The technical challenges on the Rendering & Animation team are unique, fun, ambitious, and ever-evolving.

Qualifications

• 8+ years of professional experience shipping software with a specialization in Rendering and Graphics (2D or 3D), ideally with experience in C++ / WebAssembly.
• Experience working on game engines, client-side technologies and platforms, and rendering APIs like OpenGL, WebGL, WebGPU, Vulkan, Metal, or DirectX.
• Demonstrated fluency with one or more low-level programming languages, including but not limited to C++, C, Objective-C, Go, or Rust.
• Deep familiarity with the rendering pipeline and rendering concepts. Experience with 2D vector graphics rendering is a plus but not required.
• Interest in exploring latest graphics technologies like WebGPU and developing algorithmic techniques for high-performance antialiasing.

Benefits

• Pay and compensation: Job level and actual compensation decided based on qualifications, experience, potential impact, and location; remote roles have pay ranges localized by location.
• Equity and a comprehensive benefits package, including health, dental & vision, retirement with company contribution, parental leave & reproductive or family planning support, mental health & wellness benefits, generous PTO, recharge days, learning & development stipend, work-from-home stipend, and cell phone reimbursement.
• Sales incentive pay for most sales roles and an annual bonus plan for eligible non-sales roles.
• Compensation and benefits are subject to change and may be modified in the future.
• Annual Base Salary Range (SF / NY Hub): $149,000—$350,000 USD.

At Figma we celebrate and support our differences. We are an equal opportunity workplace and are dedicated to equal employment opportunities regardless of race, color, ancestry, religion, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, age, citizenship, marital status, disability, gender identity / expression, veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by law. We also consider qualified applicants regardless of criminal histories, consistent with legal requirements. We will work to ensure individuals with disabilities are provided reasonable accommodation to apply for a role, participate in the interview process, perform essential job functions, and receive other benefits and privileges of employment. If you require accommodation, please reach out to accommodations-ext@figma.com. These modifications enable an individual with a disability to have an equal opportunity not only to get a job, but to successfully perform their job tasks to the same extent as people without disabilities. Examples of accommodations include but are not limited to: holding interviews in an accessible location; enabling closed captioning on video conferencing; ensuring all written communication is compatible with screen readers; and adjusting the mode or format of interviews. By applying for this job, the candidate acknowledges and agrees that any personal data contained in their application or supporting materials will be processed in accordance with Figma\'s Candidate Privacy Notice.