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Lead Character Designer Jobs (NOW HIRING)

Whoop

Industrial Designer, Packaging - Lead

Boston, MA

... Designer, Packaging - Lead, you will help shape the design and development of packaging systems ... we value character as much as experience. As we continue to build a diverse and inclusive ...

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Whoop

Industrial Designer, Packaging - Lead

Boston, MA · On-site

... Designer, Packaging - Lead, you will help shape the design and development of packaging systems ... we value character as much as experience. As we continue to build a diverse and inclusive ...

Whoop

Industrial Designer, Packaging - Lead

Boston, MA · On-site

... Designer, Packaging - Lead, you will help shape the design and development of packaging systems ... we value character as much as experience. As we continue to build a diverse and inclusive ...

Whoop

Industrial Designer, Packaging - Lead

Boston, MA · On-site

... Designer, Packaging - Lead, you will help shape the design and development of packaging systems ... we value character as much as experience. As we continue to build a diverse and inclusive ...

Character.ai

Product Marketing Manager

Redwood City, CA · On-site

$180K - $200K/yr

About the Role At Character.AI, our mission is to build the future of AI entertainment, giving ... As PMM, you will lead go-to-market for product launches, own ASO performance across iOS and Android ...

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Lead Character Designer information

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$42K

$91.2K

$157K

How much do lead character designer jobs pay per year?

As of Jul 4, 2026, the average yearly pay for lead character designer in the United States is $91,161.00, according to ZipRecruiter salary data. Most workers in this role earn between $66,500.00 and $109,500.00 per year, depending on experience, location, and employer.

What does a Lead Character Designer do?

A Lead Character Designer is responsible for creating and overseeing the visual development of characters in animation, video games, or other media projects. They collaborate with art directors, writers, and animators to ensure that character designs align with the project's story and style. The lead also mentors junior designers, manages the character design team, and reviews all character concepts to maintain consistency and quality throughout the project.

How does a Lead Character Designer typically collaborate with other departments during a game or animation project?

A Lead Character Designer regularly works with teams such as art direction, animation, modeling, and narrative to ensure that character concepts align with the overall vision of the project. This often means attending cross-department meetings, providing feedback on 3D models or animations, and adjusting designs based on gameplay needs or story developments. Effective communication and flexibility are key, as the Lead must balance creative vision with technical and production constraints. Collaboration also involves mentoring junior artists and ensuring consistency in character style across the project.

What are the key skills and qualifications needed to thrive as a Lead Character Designer, and why are they important?

To thrive as a Lead Character Designer, you need advanced drawing and design skills, a strong understanding of anatomy, color theory, and storytelling, often supported by a degree in art or a related field. Proficiency in digital illustration tools such as Adobe Creative Suite, ZBrush, and industry-standard 3D modeling software is typically required. Leadership, collaboration, and clear communication are essential soft skills for guiding design teams and interpreting creative direction. These qualities ensure that character concepts are both visually compelling and aligned with project goals, driving the overall success of creative projects.

What is the difference between Lead Character Designer vs Character Artist?

AspectLead Character DesignerCharacter Artist
Primary FocusLeading the design and conceptualization of characters, overseeing the creative processCreating detailed 3D or 2D character models based on designs
Required SkillsConcept art, leadership, collaboration, strong understanding of character design principlesModeling, texturing, rigging, technical skills in 3D software
Work EnvironmentCreative teams in game or animation studios, often in a leadership roleArt departments, working closely with designers and animators

While both roles involve character creation, the Lead Character Designer focuses on conceptualizing and guiding the overall character design process, whereas the Character Artist specializes in the technical creation of character models. The Lead Character Designer often leads the creative vision, and the Character Artist executes that vision through detailed modeling and texturing.

What states have the most Lead Character Designer jobs? States with the most job openings for Lead Character Designer jobs include:
What job categories do people searching Lead Character Designer jobs look for? The top searched job categories for Lead Character Designer jobs are:
Lead Character Designer jobs near you

Principal Research Engineer, Post-Training

Character.ai

Redwood City, CA • On-site

$275K - $400K/yr

Full-time

Posted 12 days ago

Job description

About the Role and Team As a Principal Research Engineer on the Post-Training team, you will drive the technical vision, execution, and evolution of the systems that transform foundation models into intelligent, engaging, and aligned products. Specifically, your team focuses on post-training of top-tier OSS LLMs (such as Mistral and Qwen) to power the highly immersive role-playing chat features of Character.AI.
You will lead initiatives spanning data, algorithms, infrastructure, and evaluation, helping define how our models learn from feedback and improve over time. This is a highly cross-functional role that combines deep technical expertise with organizational leadership. You will partner closely with researchers, engineers, product teams, and infrastructure teams to identify the highest-leverage opportunities for improving model performance and user experience. Your work will directly shape the conversational experiences of millions of users every day. At Character.AI, you will have the opportunity to influence both the direction of our research and the systems that bring it into production, helping build the next generation of AI entertainment.
What You'll Do
  • Technical Leadership & Mentorship: Define and drive the technical roadmap for mid- and post-training systems, balancing research innovation with production reliability and scalability. You will mentor and grow a team of researchers and engineers through technical guidance, design reviews, and career development. Establish best practices for experimentation, model development, and deployment.
  • Research & Model Development: Lead the development of alignment algorithms, optimization techniques, and training objectives to improve model capabilities and data efficiency. Drive advances in mid- and post-training methodologies including reinforcement learning, preference optimization, supervised fine-tuning, and emerging alignment approaches. Identify and execute high-impact research opportunities that improve model behavior, safety, and user engagement. Develop robust evaluation frameworks and quality signals to measure real-world model performance.
  • Systems & Infrastructure: Lead the design of efficient training and inference systems for large-scale generative models. Architect scalable data pipelines that transform diverse data sources into high-quality training datasets. Partner with infrastructure teams to optimize distributed training, GPU utilization, and serving efficiency. Drive improvements in experimentation platforms, data quality systems, and model observability.

Who You Are (Required Qualifications)
  • PhD in Computer Science, Machine Learning, AI, or a related field, or equivalent industry experience.
  • Significant experience leading technical projects or teams in machine learning, AI research, or large-scale distributed systems. Experience scaling and mentoring high-performing research and engineering teams.
  • Deep understanding of modern machine learning techniques, including transformers, reinforcement learning, alignment methods, and large language models.
  • Strong track record of delivering impactful research or applied ML systems in production environments.
  • Expertise in designing, building, and maintaining production-quality ML systems and infrastructure.
  • Experience training, serving, debugging, and optimizing large-scale models on GPU-based systems.
  • Experience leading teams working on large language model training, mid-training, or post-training.
  • Experience with product experimentation, online evaluation, and A/B testing frameworks.
  • Strong software engineering skills with the ability to write clean, maintainable, and scalable code.
  • Excellent communication skills and the ability to influence technical direction across teams. Lead complex, cross-functional initiatives across data, training infrastructure, evaluation, and model serving.

Nice to Have
  • Hands-on experience working directly with open-source models like Mistral and Qwen, particularly adapting them via mid- and post-training for specific personas, creative writing, or role-playing applications.
  • Familiarity with cloud-native ML infrastructure, including Kubernetes, Docker, and modern orchestration platforms.
  • Publications in leading machine learning conferences or demonstrated contributions to the broader AI community.

About Character.AI
Character.AI empowers people to connect, learn and tell stories through interactive entertainment. Over 20 million people visit Character.AI every month, using our technology to supercharge their creativity and imagination. Our platform lets users engage with tens of millions of characters, enjoy unlimited conversations, and embark on infinite adventures.
In just two years, we achieved unicorn status and were honored as Google Play's AI App of the Year-a testament to our innovative technology and visionary approach.
Join us and be a part of establishing this new entertainment paradigm while shaping the future of Consumer AI!
At Character, we value diversity and welcome applicants from all backgrounds. As an equal opportunity employer, we firmly uphold a non-discrimination policy based on race, religion, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, age, veteran status, or disability. Your unique perspectives are vital to our success.

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