Senior Machine Learning Engineer

Senior Machine Learning Engineer -- Animation & Real-Time Systems

Location: Fully remote or hybrid in Irvine or San Francisco, CA

Overview

We are partnering with a Series C startup at the forefront of animation and gaming technology, building next-generation 3D avatar systems powered by machine learning. This team is redefining how characters are created, animated, and brought to life in real-time environments.

We are seeking a Senior Machine Learning Engineer with strong experience in animation systems and real-time integration. This role sits at the intersection of ML model development and production-grade runtime systems, with a heavy focus on deploying intelligent animation behaviors into interactive pipelines.

Responsibilities

• Design and develop ML-driven systems for 3D avatar generation, including skeletal structures, rigging, and motion synthesis.
• Build and integrate models for motion prediction, gesture generation, and animation control into real-time pipelines.
• Translate model outputs into production-ready systems within Unity or Unreal Engine environments.
• Develop and optimize runtime systems for animation playback, motion matching, and behavior orchestration.
• Work with mocap data pipelines, including ingestion, cleaning, and model training.
• Collaborate closely with graphics engineers, technical artists, and gameplay teams to ensure seamless integration.
• Contribute across the ML lifecycle, with approximately 25% focused on training and fine-tuning models and 75% on engineering, integration, and runtime systems.

Requirements

• 3+ years of experience in machine learning engineering, graphics, or animation systems.
• Strong proficiency in C++ and Python.
• Hands-on experience with Unity or Unreal Engine in a production environment.
• Deep understanding of animation systems, including skeletons, rigging, motion matching, and behavior trees.
• Experience integrating ML models into real-time systems or interactive applications.
• Familiarity with mocap data processing and animation pipelines.
• Strong systems engineering mindset with the ability to optimize for performance and latency.

Nice to Have

• Experience with character animation, procedural animation, or physics-based animation systems.
• Background in gaming, simulation, or interactive media.
• Familiarity with generative models applied to motion or animation.
• Experience working with large-scale ML pipelines or real-time inference systems.