PhD Intern, Software Engineer - Graphics (2027)

The Rendering & Animation team (R&A) builds the graphics engine which renders the canvas for all Figma applications. Our mission is to make rendering performant, feature-rich, reliable, maintainable and extendible across all products & surfaces. The team plays a core, bedrock role for the company because it underpins the technology driving the user experience, touching many other teams, and as such is one of the most impactful areas of Figma.

The R&A team is devoted to hiring individuals with graphics expertise. We are interested in a variety of sub-domains, including 2D GPU-driven rendering, computational geometry & vector graphics, animation frameworks, anti-aliasing algorithms, shader effects, and more recently branching into video/image processing. A PhD Intern specializing in any of these areas would be a phenomenal fit for the team with a lot of exciting projects available.

As an intern on our team, you'll take ownership of a high-impact project at the intersection of your technical strengths and our most pressing graphics, rendering, or media challenges. You'll work closely with your intern manager, team leads, and collaborators across 1–2 partner teams to deliver tangible results within your internship. This is an opportunity to do significant, portfolio-worthy work that directly supplies Figma's visual platform.

This is a 12 or 16-week internship role that can be held from one of our US hubs (San Francisco or New York) starting in May or June of 2027.

What you'll do at Figma:

• Learn from industry graphics engineers and participate as an embedded team member of the Rendering & Animation team
• Collaborate with engineers, PMs, designers, and researchers to scope and execute your work
• Develop, validate, and document solutions from prototypes to production-ready systems
• Drive projects that apply research insights to meaningful product challenges
• Contribute to exciting domain areas; some examples: crafting and optimizing shaders for sophisticated effects, investigating improvements to anti-aliasing algorithms, improving media processing capabilities, animating spline interpolation, and more!

• Current enrollment as a 4th or 5th year senior PhD student pursuing a PhD in Computer Graphics, Media Processing, or a related field
• Experience working with OpenGL, WebGL, WebGPU, Vulkan or Metal and their respective shader languages (GLSL, WGSL) or other low-level graphics APIs
• Proficiency in either C++ or Rust
• A track record of rigorous problem-solving through academic or applied research, with experience thinking holistically about use cases and the low-level technology required

While it's not required, it's an added plus if you also have:

• Demonstrated expertise in computer graphics, supported by publications at conferences such as SIGGRAPH, Eurographics, High Performance Graphics, NVIDIA GTC, or Pacific Graphics
• Proficiency in WebAssembly, web graphics, 2D graphics, performance optimization, animation, geometry, or media
• Interest in art and design applications
• Experience using AI tools (e.g., GitHub Copilot, ChatGPT, Claude) to write, debug, and optimize code
• Related industry experience via a past internship or full-time role
• Strong communication and interpersonal skills, with demonstrated experience collaborating across functions