Facial Animation Evaluation Lead

Mercor; New York (NY); Remote; USD 60,000 - 90,000; Part time

Job summary

Cincinnatus LLC is seeking senior character animators to help define evaluation standards for a performance transfer model in an AI lab collaboration. The role focuses on maintaining emotion and timing, with a strong emphasis on facial animation and performance capture.

You will join part-time W-2 employment with Cincinnatus, with opportunities to be placed at a leading AI Lab as part of their extended workforce, and you must be able to come on-site in Playa Vista, CA or New York, NY for

Qualifications

• 4+ years as a hands-on character animator, with human or character performance as your core craft.
• Verifiable credits on 2 or more feature films, animated features, or AAA game cinematics at recognized studios.
• Direct experience with facial animation and/or performance capture — facial keyframe work, motion-capture solving, cleanup or motion editing, or character technical design of facial and performance rigs.
• A meticulous eye for micro-expressions, emotional beats, and the subtleties that make a human performance feel authentic.
• AI proficiency: familiarity with AI tools and workflows, including the ability to generate your own visual samples for testing and comparison.
• The ability to translate complex visual details into clear, precise language that can be captured in data captions and evaluation templates.
• Able to come on-site in Playa Vista (Los Angeles), CA or New York, NY for in-person working sessions once or twice a month.
• (Optional) Reliable access to a 4K-resolution monitor for precise, pixel-level review.

Responsibilities

• Establish evaluation standards: Define clear criteria for when a performance has been captured well, both in emotional resonance and physical fidelity, and point out where current evaluations fall short.
• Curate benchmarks: Identify strong examples of performances that are easy to capture and ones that are genuinely hard, so the model has meaningful tests to measure against.
• Shape the evaluation pool: Help define the right profile, expertise mix, and rubric for the human reviewers who assess outputs at scale.
• Collaborate with other experts: Work alongside fellow subject-matter experts to keep evaluations consistent and accurate.

Skills

Character animation

Facial animation

Performance capture

AI proficiency

Job description

Cincinnatus LLC is seeking senior character animators to help define evaluation standards for a performance transfer model in an AI lab collaboration. The role focuses on maintaining emotion and timing, with a strong emphasis on facial animation and performance capture.

You will join part-time W-2 employment with Cincinnatus, with opportunities to be placed at a leading AI Lab as part of their extended workforce, and you must be able to come on-site in Playa Vista, CA or New York, NY for