Senior Character Animator — AI Model Evaluation

Mercor; Los Angeles (CA); Remote; USD 60,000 - 90,000; Part time

Job summary

Mercor invites senior character animators to join a leading AI lab's GenAI team, helping define what a well-transferred performance looks like and how to judge quality across timing, emotion and minute physical choices.

This part-time W-2 position is offered through Cincinnatus LLC, with potential placement at the AI lab and occasional on-site sessions in Playa Vista (Los Angeles) or New York City.

Qualifications

• 10+ years as a hands-on character animator focused on human and character acting.
• Animator credits on feature films, VFX features or AAA game cinematics at recognized studios.
• A sharp eye for micro expressions, lip sync, weight and timing.
• Strongly preferred: facial animation experience, and recent work in real-time engines (Unreal or Unity), VR/XR, or performance capture pipelines.
• Hands-on use of generative image and video tools (e.g., Sora, Veo, Midjourney, Runway, Kling) to create your own samples for testing and comparison.
• Able to work on-site in Playa Vista (Los Angeles), CA or New York, NY for in-person working sessions once or twice a month.
• Strong written communication and the ability to turn visual detail into clear, precise language for evaluation templates.

Responsibilities

• Set the quality bar: Define clear standards for when a performance has been carried over well, in body mechanics, facial nuance, timing and emotional intent, and point out where current evaluations fall short.
• Critique model outputs: Review generated performances shot by shot, the way you would in dailies, and write precise, actionable notes.
• Build benchmarks: Choose reference performances that range from easy to genuinely hard to capture, so the model is tested on what matters.
• Shape the reviewer pool: Help define the profile, rubric and calibration for the human reviewers who score outputs at scale.
• Collaborate with other experts to keep evaluations consistent and accurate.

Skills

Character animation

Lip sync

Micro expressions

Real-time engines

Tools

Sora

Veo

Midjourney

Runway

Kling

Job description

Mercor invites senior character animators to join a leading AI lab's GenAI team, helping define what a well-transferred performance looks like and how to judge quality across timing, emotion and minute physical choices.

This part-time W-2 position is offered through Cincinnatus LLC, with potential placement at the AI lab and occasional on-site sessions in Playa Vista (Los Angeles) or New York City.