Design Engineer

About this role

We are building AI to simulate the world through merging art and science.

We believe that world models are at the frontier of progress in artificial intelligence. Language models alone won’t solve the world’s hardest problems – robotics, disease, scientific discovery. Real progress requires models that experience the world and learn from their mistakes, the same way that humans do. And this kind of trial and error can be massively accelerated when done in simulation, rather than in the real world.

World models offer the most clear path to general-purpose simulation, changing how stories are told, how scientific progress is made and how the next frontiers of humanity are reached.

Our team consists of creative, open minded, caring and ambitious people who are determined to change the world. We aspire to continuously build impossible things and our ability to do so relies on building an incredible team. If you are driven to do the same, we'd love to hear from you.

*Titles posted to our careers page are updated regularly to best advertise the role and expected seniority, but internally we have a flat titling system with two types of titles: one for individual contributors and one for people managers.

ABOUT THE ROLE

We are looking for a passionate Design Engineer to join Runway Labs — our research and exploration team pushing the frontier of AI video and General World Models. This is not a role focused on Runway core consumer products; instead, you’ll be embedded in a fast-moving lab environment where the work is exploratory, experimental, and technical.

This candidate should be a motivated self-starter with experience working closely with engineering and research teams to rapidly prototype and ship. You'll explore new interfaces and interaction paradigms for AI generated video, world models, and agentic systems helping translate cutting-edge research into tangible, usable experiences.

This role requires a blend of design skills and technical expertise, along with a genuine passion for both. As part of a small team, you’ll collaborate with researchers, engineers, and product designers to develop concept prototypes, design high-value interactive features, and build tools that enable new creative and research workflows.