📍
London, UK

Research Scientist Intern, Machine Learning, Character Animation (PhD)

Internship
Technology & Digital
Software engineering
Posted:
December 29, 2025

Meta

Social network and technology platform
71.8
Palpable Score
Apply >view company >

The Reality Labs (RL) Research brings together a world-class team of researchers, developers, and engineers to create the future of AR and VR, which together will become as universal and essential as smartphones and personal computers are today. We are developing all the technologies needed to enable breakthrough AR glasses and VR headsets, including computer vision, graphics, body tracking, perception science, and true telepresence. The Virtual Humans team in Sausalito, CA works on cutting-edge research and development focusing on virtual people and presence. We envision a world where people communicate across vast distances so our roles focus on developing user-friendly tools for expressive character creation and animation. Our internships are twelve (12) to twenty four (24) weeks long and we have various start dates throughout the year.Research Topics:* Character animation synthesis, editing, retargeting, and stylization* Hand drawn figure analysis, manipulation, and generation* Reinforcement learning and physics-based control for character animation* Efficient and realistic physics simulation and modeling of human motion* Novel input and interfaces for motion synthesis, control, and editing* Evaluation of avatar systems* Human motion reconstruction, prediction, and analysis

Research Scientist Intern, Machine Learning, Character Animation (PhD) Responsibilities

Prototyping, building, and analysis of novel research ideas

Design and execution of algorithms and/or conduct and analysis of experiments

Collaboration with and support of other researchers across various disciplines

Communication of research agenda, progress and results

Minimum Qualifications

Currently has, or is in the process of obtaining, a PhD in Computer Graphics, Character Animation, Robotics, Computer Vision, Machine Learning, Human-Computer Interaction, Human-Robot Interaction, or related fields

Must obtain work authorization in country of employment at the time of hire, and maintain ongoing work authorization during employment

Experience and familiar with technical character animation (joint hierarchies, skinning, motion models, inverse kinematics, numerical optimizations etc.)

2+ years of experience with any of Python/pytorch, C/C++, C#/Unity

Preferred Qualifications

Intent to return to degree-program after the completion of the internship

2+ years experience with character animation and/or physical simulation

Experiences in at least one of the following areas: human motion synthesis, editing, and retargeting, reinforcement learning, self-supervised learning, computer vision, 2D generative modeling, physics simulator, developing in game engines and/or 3D software such as Unity, Unreal, Maya, Blender, conducting perception studies or user studies, building VR applications

Proven track record of achieving results as demonstrated in accepted papers at top animation, graphics, interaction and perception related journals and conferences such as SIGGRAPH/Asia/TOG, SCA, Eurographics, TVCG, TAP/SAP, CHI, UIST, IEEE VR, MIG, CVPR, ICCV, ECCV, ICRA, IROS, ICLR etc

Interpersonal skills: cross-group and cross-culture collaboration

About the company

Meta

Company overview
Meta builds consumer apps and platforms used by billions of people, including Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, Messenger, and Threads. Meta makes most revenue from advertising across these products, and the company also runs Reality Labs for AR and VR hardware and software. Meta also invests heavily in AI research and product development across the company’s apps and infrastructure.

Locations and presence

Meta is headquartered in Menlo Park, California and hires across major hubs in North America, Europe, and Asia-Pacific. Work setup is generally hybrid for many corporate roles, with multi-day office expectations, and Instagram announced a five-day in-office requirement for desk-assigned U.S. staff starting February 2, 2026.

Palpable Score

71.8
/ 100
Meta offers multiple credible early-career doors, including internships, “University Grad” roles, and rotational programs that are explicitly positioned as immersive learning experiences. Pay signals look competitive and often transparent via published ranges and widely reported intern and new-grad compensation, but early-career predictability is reduced by mixed candidate experiences and widely reported workforce churn in parts of the business.
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