# PhD Intern, Software Engineer - Interaction Design (2027)

**Company**: Figma
**Location**: San Francisco, CA
**Job type**: internship
**Salary**: $74-$74 USD
**Category**: Engineering
**Industry**: Technology

**Apply**: https://job-boards.greenhouse.io/figma/jobs/6241542004?utm_source=yubhub.co&utm_medium=jobs_feed&utm_campaign=apply
**Canonical**: https://yubhub.co/jobs/job_ab49d781-356

## Description

Figma is growing our team of creatives and builders on a mission to make design accessible to all.

Figma’s Interaction Design team helps designers express how interactive experiences behave from a single interaction, to a multi-state flow, to a series of complex animated transitions.

As a PhD intern, you’ll combine HCI research with hands-on-engineering to help define the next generation of interactive experience design tooling.

Responsibilities:

- Be fully embedded onto a Figma team working on problems that intersect with your research area

- Drive projects that apply research insights to meaningful product challenges

- Collaborate with engineers, PMs, designers, and researchers to scope and execute your work

- Develop, validate, and document solutions from prototypes to production-ready systems

- Share your expertise through presentations, design reviews, and cross-functional collaboration

- Deliver a project with real impact by the end of your internship

Requirements:

- Current enrollment as a 4th or 5th year senior PhD student pursuing a PhD in Computer Science, Human-Computer Interaction, Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, or a related field

- Demonstrated ability to translate complex research concepts into practical, scalable solutions

- A track record of rigorous problem-solving through academic or applied research

- Proficiency in at least one general purpose coding language

Nice to have:

- A creative portfolio of work consisting of time-based media, animation, game development, digital illustration, or another creative field

- Strong communication and interpersonal skills, with demonstrated experience collaborating across functions

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

- Applied engineering skills via industry experience, prior internships or similar experience

- First-author publications in top academic conferences related to our team’s focus areas

Benefits:

- Housing stipend and travel reimbursement

- Opportunity to work in a supportive environment and grow your skills

## Skills

### Required
- Computer Science
- Human-Computer Interaction
- Artificial Intelligence
- Machine Learning
- coding

### Nice to have
- creative portfolio
- communication skills
- AI-assisted development tools
- applied engineering skills
- first-author publications

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Source: [Apply at job-boards.greenhouse.io](https://job-boards.greenhouse.io/figma/jobs/6241542004?utm_source=yubhub.co&utm_medium=jobs_feed&utm_campaign=apply)