Snap Inc.
Research Scientist, Animation Direction, Level 4
Snap Inc., San Francisco, California, United States, 94199
Research Scientist, Animation Direction, Level 4
Join to apply for the
Research Scientist, Animation Direction, Level 4
role at
Snap Inc. Research Scientist, Animation Direction, Level 4
3 days ago Be among the first 25 applicants Join to apply for the
Research Scientist, Animation Direction, Level 4
role at
Snap Inc. Snap Inc is a technology company. We believe the camera presents the greatest opportunity to improve the way people live and communicate. Snap contributes to human progress by empowering people to express themselves, live in the moment, learn about the world, and have fun together. The Company’s three core products are Snapchat, a visual messaging app that enhances your relationships with friends, family, and the world; Lens Studio, an augmented reality platform that powers AR across Snapchat and other services; and its AR glasses, Spectacles.
Snap Inc is a technology company. We believe the camera presents the greatest opportunity to improve the way people live and communicate. Snap contributes to human progress by empowering people to express themselves, live in the moment, learn about the world, and have fun together. The Company’s three core products are Snapchat, a visual messaging app that enhances your relationships with friends, family, and the world; Lens Studio, an augmented reality platform that powers AR across Snapchat and other services; and its AR glasses, Spectacles.
Snap Research serves as an innovation engine for the company. Our projects range from solutions to hard technical problems that significantly enhance Snap’s existing products, to riskier explorations that can lead to fundamental paradigm shifts in the way people communicate and express themselves. The team consists of scientists and engineers who experiment with and invent new technology that has a lasting impact on Snap’s products.
We are looking for a Research Scientist to join our Computational Imaging Research Team! The Computational Imaging team in NYC focuses on enhancing user experiences with our photo and short form video products, and enabling our creators to make Lenses more easily in Lens Studio. Specifically, our core focus in 2025 is on improving image and video quality (quality assessment, video super resolution, compression, image editing), and animations (animation generation, 3D avatar, video generation for animations). Our research areas include computer vision, computational imaging/photography, 3d motion/video generation, efficient VLMs, and more.
What you'll do:
Propose and develop cutting-edge multimodal techniques for 3D human animation and video generation — enabling expressive Bitmoji avatars and next-gen Snapchat video gen experiences Build models that map text, audio, video, and music to 3D animation and drive video generation downstream tasks, such as background video generation for animation rendering and audio-driven lip synced video generation Advance avatar technologies including animatable 3D Gaussian avatars, head/body reconstruction, and animation control Collaborate with product teams to deploy research at scale and publish at top-tier academic venues
Knowledge, Skills, & Abilities:
Ability to define impactful research problems and deliver practical solutions, both in academic and product contexts Deep expertise in human motion modeling, facial/body animation, and generative modeling (e.g., text-to-motion, text-to-image, text-to-video, etc) Familiarity with video generation, avatar representations (e.g., mesh, NeRF, Gaussian), and rendering pipelines Strong prototyping and engineering skills (Python, PyTorch, C++), familiar with large scale distributed ML training on GCP/AWS clusters Proven ability to lead and mentor interns, PhD students, and junior researchers, as well as collaborate effectively with product teams Excellent communication and cross-functional collaboration skills
Minimum Qualifications:
PhD in a technical field such as Computer Science/Electrical Engineering, or equivalent experience Hands-on experience with mainstream generative models (Diffusion, Transformers, GANs, VAEs) for animation or video Research or product experience in either of the following: 3D human motion generation from various signals such as text or audio; image/video generation; 3D avatar reconstruction and animation; or multimodal generation
Preferred Qualifications:
Publications in top-tier venues as the main contributor (e.g., CVPR, SIGGRAPH, NeurIPS, ICCV, ECCV, ICLR); contributed to popular open-source projects code/dataset release Hands-on experience in large scale dataset curation and distributed ML model training such as image/video generation model pre-training or post-training Strong foundation in computer vision, 3D graphics, and multimodal learning
"Default Together" Policy at Snap: At Snap Inc. we believe that being together in person helps us build our culture faster, reinforce our values, and serve our community, customers and partners better through dynamic collaboration. To reflect this, we practice a “default together” approach and expect our team members to work in an office 4+ days per week.
At Snap, we believe that having a team of diverse backgrounds and voices working together will enable us to create innovative products that improve the way people live and communicate. Snap is proud to be an equal opportunity employer, and committed to providing employment opportunities regardless of race, religious creed, color, national origin, ancestry, physical disability, mental disability, medical condition, genetic information, marital status, sex, gender, gender identity, gender expression, pregnancy, childbirth and breastfeeding, age, sexual orientation, military or veteran status, or any other protected classification, in accordance with applicable federal, state, and local laws. EOE, including disability/vets. If you have a disability or special need that requires accommodation, please don’t be shy and contact us at accommodations-ext@snap.com.
Our Benefits: Snap Inc. is its own community, so we’ve got your back! We do our best to make sure you and your loved ones have everything you need to be happy and healthy, on your own terms. Our benefits are built around your needs and include paid parental leave, comprehensive medical coverage, emotional and mental health support programs, and compensation packages that let you share in Snap’s long-term success!
If you have a disability or special need that requires accommodation, please don’t be shy and provide us some information.
"Default Together" Policy at Snap: At Snap Inc. we believe that being together in person helps us build our culture faster, reinforce our values, and serve our community, customers and partners better through dynamic collaboration. To reflect this, we practice a “default together” approach and expect our team members to work in an office 4+ days per week.
At Snap, we believe that having a team of diverse backgrounds and voices working together will enable us to create innovative products that improve the way people live and communicate. Snap is proud to be an equal opportunity employer, and committed to providing employment opportunities regardless of race, religious creed, color, national origin, ancestry, physical disability, mental disability, medical condition, genetic information, marital status, sex, gender, gender identity, gender expression, pregnancy, childbirth and breastfeeding, age, sexual orientation, military or veteran status, or any other protected classification, in accordance with applicable federal, state, and local laws. EOE, including disability/vets.
We are an Equal Opportunity Employer and will consider qualified applicants with criminal histories in a manner consistent with applicable law (by example, the requirements of the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance and the Los Angeles Fair Chance Initiative for Hiring, where applicable).
Our Benefits: Snap Inc. is its own community, so we’ve got your back! We do our best to make sure you and your loved ones have everything you need to be happy and healthy, on your own terms. Our benefits are built around your needs and include paid parental leave, comprehensive medical coverage, emotional and mental health support programs, and compensation packages that let you share in Snap’s long-term success!
Compensation
In the United States, work locations are assigned a pay zone which determines the salary range for the position. The successful candidate’s starting pay will be determined based on job-related skills, experience, qualifications, work location, and market conditions. The starting pay may be negotiable within the salary range for the position. These pay zones may be modified in the future.
Zone A (CA, WA, NYC):
The base salary range for this position is $173,000-$259,000 annually.
Zone B:
The base salary range for this position is $164,000-$246,000 annually.
Zone C:
The base salary range for this position is $147,000-$220,000 annually.
This position is eligible for equity in the form of RSUs. Seniority level
Seniority level Mid-Senior level Employment type
Employment type Full-time Job function
Job function Other Industries Software Development Referrals increase your chances of interviewing at Snap Inc. by 2x Sign in to set job alerts for “Research Scientist” roles.
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Join to apply for the
Research Scientist, Animation Direction, Level 4
role at
Snap Inc. Research Scientist, Animation Direction, Level 4
3 days ago Be among the first 25 applicants Join to apply for the
Research Scientist, Animation Direction, Level 4
role at
Snap Inc. Snap Inc is a technology company. We believe the camera presents the greatest opportunity to improve the way people live and communicate. Snap contributes to human progress by empowering people to express themselves, live in the moment, learn about the world, and have fun together. The Company’s three core products are Snapchat, a visual messaging app that enhances your relationships with friends, family, and the world; Lens Studio, an augmented reality platform that powers AR across Snapchat and other services; and its AR glasses, Spectacles.
Snap Inc is a technology company. We believe the camera presents the greatest opportunity to improve the way people live and communicate. Snap contributes to human progress by empowering people to express themselves, live in the moment, learn about the world, and have fun together. The Company’s three core products are Snapchat, a visual messaging app that enhances your relationships with friends, family, and the world; Lens Studio, an augmented reality platform that powers AR across Snapchat and other services; and its AR glasses, Spectacles.
Snap Research serves as an innovation engine for the company. Our projects range from solutions to hard technical problems that significantly enhance Snap’s existing products, to riskier explorations that can lead to fundamental paradigm shifts in the way people communicate and express themselves. The team consists of scientists and engineers who experiment with and invent new technology that has a lasting impact on Snap’s products.
We are looking for a Research Scientist to join our Computational Imaging Research Team! The Computational Imaging team in NYC focuses on enhancing user experiences with our photo and short form video products, and enabling our creators to make Lenses more easily in Lens Studio. Specifically, our core focus in 2025 is on improving image and video quality (quality assessment, video super resolution, compression, image editing), and animations (animation generation, 3D avatar, video generation for animations). Our research areas include computer vision, computational imaging/photography, 3d motion/video generation, efficient VLMs, and more.
What you'll do:
Propose and develop cutting-edge multimodal techniques for 3D human animation and video generation — enabling expressive Bitmoji avatars and next-gen Snapchat video gen experiences Build models that map text, audio, video, and music to 3D animation and drive video generation downstream tasks, such as background video generation for animation rendering and audio-driven lip synced video generation Advance avatar technologies including animatable 3D Gaussian avatars, head/body reconstruction, and animation control Collaborate with product teams to deploy research at scale and publish at top-tier academic venues
Knowledge, Skills, & Abilities:
Ability to define impactful research problems and deliver practical solutions, both in academic and product contexts Deep expertise in human motion modeling, facial/body animation, and generative modeling (e.g., text-to-motion, text-to-image, text-to-video, etc) Familiarity with video generation, avatar representations (e.g., mesh, NeRF, Gaussian), and rendering pipelines Strong prototyping and engineering skills (Python, PyTorch, C++), familiar with large scale distributed ML training on GCP/AWS clusters Proven ability to lead and mentor interns, PhD students, and junior researchers, as well as collaborate effectively with product teams Excellent communication and cross-functional collaboration skills
Minimum Qualifications:
PhD in a technical field such as Computer Science/Electrical Engineering, or equivalent experience Hands-on experience with mainstream generative models (Diffusion, Transformers, GANs, VAEs) for animation or video Research or product experience in either of the following: 3D human motion generation from various signals such as text or audio; image/video generation; 3D avatar reconstruction and animation; or multimodal generation
Preferred Qualifications:
Publications in top-tier venues as the main contributor (e.g., CVPR, SIGGRAPH, NeurIPS, ICCV, ECCV, ICLR); contributed to popular open-source projects code/dataset release Hands-on experience in large scale dataset curation and distributed ML model training such as image/video generation model pre-training or post-training Strong foundation in computer vision, 3D graphics, and multimodal learning
"Default Together" Policy at Snap: At Snap Inc. we believe that being together in person helps us build our culture faster, reinforce our values, and serve our community, customers and partners better through dynamic collaboration. To reflect this, we practice a “default together” approach and expect our team members to work in an office 4+ days per week.
At Snap, we believe that having a team of diverse backgrounds and voices working together will enable us to create innovative products that improve the way people live and communicate. Snap is proud to be an equal opportunity employer, and committed to providing employment opportunities regardless of race, religious creed, color, national origin, ancestry, physical disability, mental disability, medical condition, genetic information, marital status, sex, gender, gender identity, gender expression, pregnancy, childbirth and breastfeeding, age, sexual orientation, military or veteran status, or any other protected classification, in accordance with applicable federal, state, and local laws. EOE, including disability/vets. If you have a disability or special need that requires accommodation, please don’t be shy and contact us at accommodations-ext@snap.com.
Our Benefits: Snap Inc. is its own community, so we’ve got your back! We do our best to make sure you and your loved ones have everything you need to be happy and healthy, on your own terms. Our benefits are built around your needs and include paid parental leave, comprehensive medical coverage, emotional and mental health support programs, and compensation packages that let you share in Snap’s long-term success!
If you have a disability or special need that requires accommodation, please don’t be shy and provide us some information.
"Default Together" Policy at Snap: At Snap Inc. we believe that being together in person helps us build our culture faster, reinforce our values, and serve our community, customers and partners better through dynamic collaboration. To reflect this, we practice a “default together” approach and expect our team members to work in an office 4+ days per week.
At Snap, we believe that having a team of diverse backgrounds and voices working together will enable us to create innovative products that improve the way people live and communicate. Snap is proud to be an equal opportunity employer, and committed to providing employment opportunities regardless of race, religious creed, color, national origin, ancestry, physical disability, mental disability, medical condition, genetic information, marital status, sex, gender, gender identity, gender expression, pregnancy, childbirth and breastfeeding, age, sexual orientation, military or veteran status, or any other protected classification, in accordance with applicable federal, state, and local laws. EOE, including disability/vets.
We are an Equal Opportunity Employer and will consider qualified applicants with criminal histories in a manner consistent with applicable law (by example, the requirements of the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance and the Los Angeles Fair Chance Initiative for Hiring, where applicable).
Our Benefits: Snap Inc. is its own community, so we’ve got your back! We do our best to make sure you and your loved ones have everything you need to be happy and healthy, on your own terms. Our benefits are built around your needs and include paid parental leave, comprehensive medical coverage, emotional and mental health support programs, and compensation packages that let you share in Snap’s long-term success!
Compensation
In the United States, work locations are assigned a pay zone which determines the salary range for the position. The successful candidate’s starting pay will be determined based on job-related skills, experience, qualifications, work location, and market conditions. The starting pay may be negotiable within the salary range for the position. These pay zones may be modified in the future.
Zone A (CA, WA, NYC):
The base salary range for this position is $173,000-$259,000 annually.
Zone B:
The base salary range for this position is $164,000-$246,000 annually.
Zone C:
The base salary range for this position is $147,000-$220,000 annually.
This position is eligible for equity in the form of RSUs. Seniority level
Seniority level Mid-Senior level Employment type
Employment type Full-time Job function
Job function Other Industries Software Development Referrals increase your chances of interviewing at Snap Inc. by 2x Sign in to set job alerts for “Research Scientist” roles.
South San Francisco, CA $28.00-$32.00 5 days ago Research Scientist - Computational Chemistry
Oakland, CA $150,000.00-$200,000.00 1 month ago Scientist 1/2/Senior Scientist, Analytical Development
Scientist/Senior Scientist, Analytical Chemistry
San Mateo, CA $125,000.00-$150,000.00 3 weeks ago Scientist/Senior Scientist, Analytical Chemistry
San Mateo County, CA $75.00-$85.00 1 week ago San Francisco, CA $136,000.00-$212,800.00 2 weeks ago Hayward, CA $85,000.00-$100,000.00 2 weeks ago Principal/Senior Scientist, Analytical Science
San Francisco, CA $300,000.00-$450,000.00 6 hours ago Senior Scientist I, Biologics Drug Substance Development (Cell Culture Development)
South San Francisco, CA $94,000.00-$178,500.00 3 days ago San Francisco, CA $102,600.00-$309,800.00 3 weeks ago Imaging Scientist - Assistant/Associate/Full Professional Research Series
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San Francisco, CA $136,000.00-$212,800.00 21 hours ago Clinical Outcomes Research - Physician-Scientist
San Francisco, CA $127,000.00-$333,700.00 1 month ago Computational Chemist, Computer-Aided Drug Design
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Research Engineer/Scientist, CBRN (Rad/Nuke)
San Francisco, CA $315,000.00-$340,000.00 2 weeks ago San Francisco, CA $113,000.00-$195,200.00 2 weeks ago Director, Analytical Sciences, Drug Product
Senior Scientist (Analytical Development CMC)
South San Francisco, CA $138,000.00-$174,000.00 2 weeks ago Brisbane, CA $140,250.00-$216,500.00 3 days ago Scientist/Senior Scientist, Analytical Chemistry
SENIOR ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENTIST (SPECIALIST)
Alameda, CA $7,556.00-$10,221.00 3 days ago We’re unlocking community knowledge in a new way. Experts add insights directly into each article, started with the help of AI.
#J-18808-Ljbffr