Synthetic Human Designer

De Art; Dubai; On-site; AED 120,000 - 180,000; Full time

Job summary

De Art seeks a highly creative Synthetic Human Designer to craft believable, expressive digital humans and AI characters for immersive experiences. You will shape appearance, personality, movement, voice, and interaction across real-time environments, collaborating with AI engineers, artists, writers, and UX specialists.

You will contribute to design frameworks, behavioral rules, and memory-driven characters, ensuring coherence across dialogue, emotion, and action in Unreal Engine, Unity, and

Qualifications

• BA/MA in Character Design, Animation, Digital Media, Computer Graphics, Interaction Design, Psychology, Cognitive Science, Game Design, Film, Visual Effects, Artificial Intelligence, Human-Computer Interaction, or a related field.
• At least 3–5 years of experience in character design, digital humans, animation, interactive media, game development, virtual production, AI experiences, or a related field.
• Demonstrable experience designing characters, digital humans, avatars, virtual humans, interactive agents, or comparable digital entities.
• Fluency in English; additional languages are an asset.

Responsibilities

• Design synthetic humans from initial concept through visual, behavioral, interactive, and technical development.
• Develop the overall design language of synthetic humans, including physical appearance, digital identity, personality, behavior, emotional characteristics, communication style, movement, voice, and presence.
• Translate character concepts, narratives, functional requirements, cultural references, and user needs into coherent synthetic human designs.
• Develop detailed character specifications covering identity, personality, background, motivations, values, goals, preferences, emotional range, behavioral patterns, and social characteristics.
• Design realistic, stylized, or intentionally synthetic human appearances according to the creative and functional requirements of each project.
• Collaborate with 3D artists to develop facial features, anatomy, body proportions, clothing, hair, materials, textures, and other visual elements.
• Work with character and technical artists on facial rigs, blendshapes, body rigs, deformation systems, eye movement, lip synchronization, and expressive capabilities.
• Design how synthetic humans communicate through facial expressions, gaze, posture, gestures, body language, movement, voice, and dialogue.

Skills

Character design

Digital humans

Animation

Conversational AI

Interdisciplinary collaboration

Education

BA/MA in Character Design or related field

Tools

Unreal Engine

Unity

MetaHuman

Maya

Blender

ZBrush

Houdini

Motion Builder

Substance 3D

Job description

Synthetic Human Designer — AI Characters & Virtual Humans (1 Position)

About the Job

We are seeking a creative, interdisciplinary, and technically aware Synthetic Human Designer to design believable, expressive, and intelligent synthetic humans for AI-powered digital experiences. The successful candidate will work across visual appearance, digital identity, personality, behavior, movement, voice, emotion, and interaction to create synthetic humans that can communicate and behave coherently across different environments and contexts.

This is a hands-on role at the intersection of artificial intelligence, character design, digital humans, animation, storytelling, human behavior, real-time 3D, and human-AI interaction. The successful candidate will collaborate closely with AI specialists, character artists, 3D artists, animators, technical artists, writers, conversational designers, voice and performance teams, UX specialists, and developers to transform conceptual human characters into complete, interactive synthetic human experiences.

Responsibilities

• Design synthetic humans from initial concept through visual, behavioral, interactive, and technical development.
• Develop the overall design language of synthetic humans, including physical appearance, digital identity, personality, behavior, emotional characteristics, communication style, movement, voice, and presence.
• Translate character concepts, narratives, functional requirements, cultural references, and user needs into coherent synthetic human designs.
• Develop detailed character specifications covering identity, personality, background, motivations, values, goals, preferences, emotional range, behavioral patterns, and social characteristics.
• Design realistic, stylized, or intentionally synthetic human appearances according to the creative and functional requirements of each project.
• Collaborate with 3D artists to develop facial features, anatomy, body proportions, clothing, hair, materials, textures, and other visual elements.
• Work with character and technical artists on facial rigs, blendshapes, body rigs, deformation systems, eye movement, lip synchronization, and expressive capabilities.
• Design how synthetic humans communicate through facial expressions, gaze, posture, gestures, body language, movement, voice, and dialogue.
• Collaborate with AI teams to connect visual character design with conversational intelligence, personality, memory, reasoning, behavior, and interaction.
• Translate character concepts and behavioral intentions into practical AI requirements, prompts, system instructions, behavioral rules, examples, and evaluation criteria.
• Design emotional and social behavior for synthetic humans across different situations, users, environments, and interaction contexts.
• Define how synthetic humans respond to uncertainty, disagreement, conflict, unexpected events, emotional situations, misunderstandings, and changing circumstances.
• Develop coherent relationships between personality, dialogue, facial expression, body language, voice, movement, and emotional state.
• Collaborate with conversational designers and writers to ensure that dialogue and language consistently express the character's identity and personality.
• Work with animation, motion capture, facial capture, and performance teams to develop believable human performance.
• Coordinate with voice teams to establish voice characteristics, speech patterns, emotional delivery, tone, rhythm, and vocal identity.
• Support integration of synthetic humans into real-time environments using platforms such as Unreal Engine, Unity, Meta Human, or comparable technologies.
• Evaluate synthetic human behavior and performance for realism, coherence, responsiveness, emotional expression, continuity, and character consistency.
• Identify gaps or inconsistencies between visual identity, personality, AI behavior, voice, animation, and interaction.
• Participate in testing, role-play, scenario development, user research, and iterative character refinement.
• Develop scenario libraries and edge cases to evaluate how synthetic humans behave across diverse interactions.
• Establish design principles and evaluation criteria for believable synthetic human appearance, behavior, communication, emotional expression, and interaction.
• Research emerging technologies in generative AI, digital humans, synthetic media, neural rendering, real-time character systems, conversational AI, performance capture, and intelligent avatars.
• Explore new approaches to creating synthetic humans that can maintain persistent identities, relationships, memories, and evolving behavior over time.
• Develop reusable design frameworks, specifications, documentation, and workflows for future synthetic human projects.
• Work closely with multidisciplinary teams to ensure that creative, behavioral, technical, and user-experience requirements remain aligned throughout development.

Qualifications

• Minimum BA/MA in Character Design, Animation, Digital Media, Computer Graphics, Interaction Design, Psychology, Cognitive Science, Game Design, Film, Visual Effects, Artificial Intelligence, Human-Computer Interaction, or a related field.
• At least 3–5 years of experience in character design, digital humans, animation, interactive media, game development, virtual production, AI experiences, or a related field.
• Demonstrable experience designing characters, digital humans, avatars, virtual humans, interactive agents, or comparable digital entities.
• Strong understanding of human anatomy, facial expression, body language, movement, gesture, gaze, posture, and non-verbal communication.
• Strong understanding of character development, personality, human behavior, emotion, social interaction, and narrative design.
• Ability to translate abstract concepts such as personality, identity, emotion, and human behavior into concrete visual, behavioral, and interaction design specifications.
• Familiarity with artificial intelligence, generative AI, conversational AI, large language models (LLMs), AI agents, or intelligent character systems.
• Understanding of how AI-generated dialogue, personality, memory, behavior, voice, facial expression, and body movement can work together as a unified character system.
• Practical familiarity with digital human and real-time character technologies such as Unreal Engine, Unity, Meta Human, Maya, Blender, ZBrush, Houdini, Motion Builder, Substance 3D, or comparable tools.
• Understanding of 3D character development, rigging, skinning, facial systems, blendshapes, animation, materials, and real-time rendering.
• Familiarity with motion capture, facial capture, performance capture, voice performance, lip synchronization, and character animation.
• Experience collaborating with AI engineers, technical artists, animators, writers, designers, developers, performers, and UX specialists.
• Strong visual and conceptual thinking combined with excellent attention to behavioral and technical detail.
• Ability to analyze character behavior and identify inconsistencies between appearance, personality, dialogue, emotion, movement, and interaction.
• Strong communication and documentation skills, with the ability to create character specifications, design guidelines, behavioral frameworks, and production briefs.
• Ability to research emerging technologies and incorporate relevant developments into character and synthetic human design.
• Strong problem-solving skills and ability to work effectively in multidisciplinary and rapidly evolving environments.
• Experience with prototyping, testing, iteration, and user-centered evaluation of interactive characters or digital experiences.
• Portfolio, showreel, or documented track record demonstrating relevant character, digital human, avatar, animation, AI, or interactive experience projects.
• Fluency in English; additional languages are an asset.

What We Offer

• The opportunity to design next-generation synthetic humans and AI-powered digital characters.
• A highly interdisciplinary environment connecting artificial intelligence, character design, animation, storytelling, psychology, performance, real-time 3D, and human-AI interaction.
• The opportunity to develop new approaches to creating believable, expressive, intelligent, and evolving synthetic humans.
• Direct influence over the appearance, identity, personality, behavior, emotion, communication, and performance of digital humans.
• The opportunity to explore emerging concepts of synthetic identity, artificial personality, digital presence, human-AI relationships, and intelligent characters.
• Collaboration with creative and technical specialists working with advanced AI and immersive technologies.
• The opportunity to experiment with emerging tools and production methods in generative AI, digital humans, real-time graphics, and interactive character systems.
• Professional growth in an emerging field at the intersection of artificial intelligence, digital humans, synthetic media, and interactive experiences.

We welcome applications from candidates with diverse backgrounds and encourage cross-disciplinary practitioners with experience across artificial intelligence, character design, animation, psychology, storytelling, digital media, virtual production, performance, and emerging technologies to apply.