Software Engineer - AI Product

About the role

You will own the design and implementation of early-phase AI systems that directly enhance the user experience across the Figma platform. You will collaborate daily with a cutting edge AI Research team to translate ambiguous product opportunities into concrete engineering strategies. Your work will raise the ceiling of what is possible for designers while lowering the floor of who can design by making powerful AI capabilities approachable and reliable. You will mentor other engineers and product teams, promoting best practices in data and AI to cultivate a collaborative and inclusive culture. You will also contribute to the growth of the team by improving hiring processes and recruiting outstanding AI talent. In this role, you will be responsible for turning high level product goals into production-ready AI features that are measurable, performant, and impactful. You will help define success metrics and build systems to measure and improve AI performance and relevance over time.

Key facts

What you'll do

Lead the development of early-phase AI systems to enhance user experience and develop systems to measure and improve AI performance and relevance.

Direct the future of AI at Figma in collaboration with cross-functional teams of innovative software engineers, product managers, and data scientists.

Break down open-ended AI problems into engineering strategies utilizing machine learning, data analysis, and experimental design.

Provide mentorship and promote best practices in data and AI while cultivating a collaborative and inclusive team culture.

Contribute to the growth of the team by improving the hiring process and recruiting outstanding AI talent.

Evaluate emerging AI technologies and assess their potential impact on the Figma product and design workflows.

Partner with product managers to define roadmaps, milestones, and success metrics for AI features.

Implement robust experiments to validate hypotheses and refine AI models based on user feedback and performance data.

Work closely with designers and researchers to ensure AI features align with user needs and design principles.

Maintain and iterate on production AI systems to ensure reliability, scalability, and maintainability.

Analyze large datasets to drive insights that inform product decisions and improve model outcomes.

Champion best practices in software engineering, data privacy, and ethical AI throughout the product lifecycle.

Communicate progress, risks, and tradeoffs to stakeholders at all levels of the organization.

Continuously learn and adapt to new techniques, tools, and frameworks in the rapidly evolving AI landscape.

Requirements

5+ years of experience in Software Engineering, with 1 or more years of experience developing generative AI products.

Comfort in prototyping and pathfinding new opportunities that led to successful 0 to 1 projects.

Proven experience implementing the full lifecycle of early-phase AI development, from ideating on which models to use through productionizing and maintaining them.

Experience in developing deep product and business knowledge to connect abstract modeling and analysis tasks with business value.

Strong proficiency in at least one modern programming language and experience with software design patterns.

Solid understanding of machine learning fundamentals, including model training, inference, and evaluation.

Experience working with large datasets and data pipelines is essential.

Ability to work independently and collaboratively in a fast-paced, ambiguous environment.

Excellent written and verbal communication skills for collaborating with cross-functional teams.

A commitment to writing clean, maintainable, and well-documented code.

Nice to have

Experience using AI-assisted development tools (e.g., GitHub Copilot, ChatGPT, Claude) to write, debug, and optimize code.

Demonstrated expertise in AI indexing, retrieval systems, personalization, and/or natural language processing.

Proven track record of planning a multi-year roadmap in which shorter-term projects ladder up to the long-term vision.

A relevant advanced degree (Masters or PhD) in Machine Learning, Artificial Intelligence, Statistics, or a related field.

A growth mindset and experience investing in the learning, development, belonging, and impact of your peers, for example mentoring or aligning senior engineers across organizations.

Practical notes

This is a full-time role that can be undertaken from one of our US hubs or remotely in the United States.

Applications will be reviewed on a rolling basis until the position is filled.

Reasonable accommodations will be made to support individuals throughout the application and interview process.

Participation in this process indicates your interest in opportunities at Figma and acknowledgement of the pay transparency disclosure.