About Layer

Layer AI is on a mission to empower game artists with cutting-edge AI tools for generating images, videos, 3D, and audio assets. Our platform helps artists create high-quality assets more efficiently and flexibly, redefining the creative process in the gaming industry. As a rapidly growing startup, we’re looking for passionate engineers who thrive in fast-paced environments and want to build products with real impact.

The Role

We’re seeking a Staff Software Engineer, Generative AIto help Layer stay at the frontier of machine learning for creative production.

You’ll be responsible for researching, integrating, and operationalizing state-of-the-art generative models to enhance Layer’s products and workflows.

You’ll work closely with our Art Director and engineering team to push what’s possible — experimenting with model architectures, fine-tuning techniques, and new datasets to produce visually stunning, performant, and production-ready AI systems.

Your impact will directly shape how professional artists interact with AI and how Layer scales its creative capabilities.

What You’ll Do

• Stay at the Frontier: Continuously explore, evaluate, and integrate the latest models across image, video, 3D, and multimodal AI (e.g., diffusion, transformers, and video foundation models).
• Solve Unsolved Problems: Investigate challenging creative or technical problems surfaced by customers (e.g., transparency, re-coloring, tileability, 3D consistency), develop experimental solutions, and present findings for integration into Layer’s products.
• Accelerate Model Integration: Rapidly prototype and integrate valuable models into Layer’s stack; remove underperforming ones using data-driven usage and performance metrics.
• Collaborate Cross-Functionally: Partner with the Art Director to train and evaluate models for artistic consistency, building style libraries that enhance visual quality and creative output.
• Understand and Evolve the System: Quickly develop a deep understanding of Layer’s existing architecture — its capabilities, strengths, and areas for improvement — and create a plan to expand Layer’s platform to match evolving 3rd-party model ecosystems (e.g., Veo3, Flux, Kling, Runway, Stability AI).
• Knowledge Share: Lead internal knowledge transfer sessions; ensure the broader team understands model behavior, tradeoffs, and creative applications.
• Build Complex Workflows: Create end-to-end AI workflows (e.g., “Nano Banana” → Veo3 first/last frame compositing) that demonstrate Layer’s innovation edge.
• Advance the Platform: Design and implement new backend and frontend capabilities (Python + ReactJS) that enable faster experimentation, integration, and delivery of new features.  Build and maintain GraphQL APIs to ensure efficient data flow between front-end and back-end.    

You Have

• Deep understanding of generative ML systems (diffusion, transformers, multimodal embeddings, etc.).
• Experience with PyTorch, Diffusers, and Python-based ML pipelines.
• Proven ability to analyze, extend, and optimize existing ML architectures — understanding their capabilities, constraints, and opportunities for improvement.
• Ability to fine-tune and operationalize models (LoRA, Dreambooth, ControlNet, or custom training).
• Awareness of state-of-the-art research and tools — with curiosity and rigor to experiment and apply new techniques.
• Comfort working with ReactJS (or modern front-end frameworks) to prototype, extend, or refine user-facing tools and internal interfaces.
• Track record of deploying models in production environments with measurable impact.
• Excellent communication and collaboration skills; thrives in fast-moving, startup-style teams.

Apply Now

If you’re excited about redefining creative workflows with generative AI, we’d love to hear from you! Please send your resume and any relevant portfolio links. Let’s shape the future of game art together.

Our Values:

🚀  Execute Pragmatically: We approach work with speed and practicality in mind. We take individual ownership over our work, and we trust each other to deliver, but we avoid working in isolation. We strive to be excellent at what we do and will take time to deepen our knowledge of our craft; the more we learn, the better we can execute!

💓  Be Open: At Layer, openness applies to both the business and the people who work within it. We are continually open to giving and receiving feedback and learning new things from each other. We communicate openly and honestly. We are humble and kind and acknowledge that we are not always right.

🌎 Artists First: We are building a tool for artists, to enable them to be more creative and imaginative. We make sure that everything we are building serves artists first.

What we offer:

• Equity plan
• Competitive salary
• Laptop / equipment budget

Commitment to equal opportunity:

We believe that everyone should work in an environment free from discrimination and harassment. All applicants will be treated fairly and judged solely on their merits. Our recruitment process is open, honest, and fair.