Jobs / United States / Figma INC
PhD Intern, Software Engineer - Graphics (2027)
Figma INC · 🇺🇸 San Francisco, CA • New York, NY
Sponsorship verdict
Sponsorship possible
One solid signal, not two — worth applying, and worth asking about sponsorship early.
- Employer is on a government sponsor recordThe US Department of Labor certified 67 H-1B/E-3 labor condition applications for this employer between Oct 2025 and Jun 2026 (latest Jun 2026) — the step every H-1B hire needs first. USCIS also records 10 H-1B approvals in FY2023. Source: LCA disclosure data (US Department of Labor (OFLC)).
- The posting doesn’t mention sponsorshipSilence isn’t a refusal — ask the recruiter before investing much time.
- No salary bar for this routeH-1B has no fixed salary bar: the employer must pay at least the prevailing wage for the role and area. Cap-subject employers enter a lottery weighted by wage level. Source: https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2025/12/29/2025-23853/weighted-selection-process-for-registrants-and-petitioners-seeking-to-file-cap-subject-h-1b, rules effective 2026-02-27.
- What Figma INC paid sponsored hires in similar roles16 certified filings for “Software Engineer” (Software Developers) in CA: $190k–$240k, median $219k. Most were filed at wage level III (47%) — 3 lottery entries, ≈46% projected selection odds for cap-subject employers. Source: US Department of Labor LCA disclosure data (Oct 2025 – Jun 2026).
- Confirmed live todayWhen a source last listed this job as open.
US H-1B: cap-subject employers enter a lottery weighted by wage level — Level I gets 1 entry, Level IV gets 4 (DHS projected selection odds ≈15% at Level I to ≈61% at Level IV). Universities and non-profit research employers are cap-exempt. The $100,000 fee for new petitions from abroad is currently blocked by a court order (appeal pending).
A verdict summarises public evidence; it is not legal advice and never a guarantee — the employer and the immigration authority decide. Sign in to factor in where you can already work.
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Sponsor Radar — Figma INC
The US Department of Labor certified 67 H-1B/E-3 labor condition applications for this employer between Oct 2025 and Jun 2026 (latest Jun 2026) — the step every H-1B hire needs first. USCIS also records 10 H-1B approvals in FY2023. Source: LCA disclosure data (US Department of Labor (OFLC)).
Past sponsorship or register membership never guarantees sponsorship for this vacancy or for you. Full Sponsor Radar for Figma INC →
About the role
Figma is growing our team of passionate creatives and builders on a mission to make design accessible to all. Figma’s platform helps teams bring ideas to life—whether you're brainstorming, creating a prototype, translating designs into code, or iterating with AI. From idea to product, Figma empowers teams to streamline workflows, move faster, and work together in real time from anywhere in the world. If you're excited to shape the future of design and collaboration, join us! 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! We'd love to hear from you if you have: • 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