AI Applied Scientist Intern

Figma invests in the UK with expanded London office. With our new London office, we're getting closer to our customers and community. Today, Figma announced an expanded office in London. This deepens Figma's investment in one of its largest markets outside the United States, where two thirds of the FTSE 100 build with Figma as of Q2 2026. "The UK has one of the deepest concentrations of design and product talent anywhere, from the banks and retailers building new digital products to the design studios shaping the future of online interaction," says Daniel Barrett, Figma's SVP of International. "We're proud to expand our office in the heart of this incredible creative ecosystem." Figma's London office gives new life to restored Georgian and Victorian warehouses at Elder Yard on Norton Folgate, a part of the city that has been home to makers for hundreds of years. The Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, says: "I'm delighted that Figma is expanding its presence in London. Its decision to invest further in the capital is a vote of confidence in London's position as a global leader in technology, design, and the creative industries. London's exceptional talent, diversity, and culture of innovation make it one of the best places in the world to start and grow a business. Through our London Growth Plan, we are continuing to support the high-growth industries that create good jobs, boost productivity, and help us build a fairer and more prosperous city for everyone." The UK has always been a vibrant centre for innovation where businesses care deeply about design, collaboration, and increasingly, new ways of building with AI. Figma recently launched its annual global AI report, including findings from the UK. The report draws on three years of data, including 8,403 survey responses and 639 qualitative interviews with designers, developers, and product managers across ten markets: the United States, United Kingdom, Japan, Germany, France, Canada, Australia, Brazil, India, and South Korea. Globally, this year's study found that: * 41% of product builders say AI now meaningfully changes how their teams work together, up from just 7% two years ago. * 90% of respondents say design is at least as important as it was before AI, with 57% saying it matters more. * The number of developers doing design work rose from 44% to 60% in a single year, and the number of designers participating in development doubled to 41%. In the UK specifically, across 421 local respondents, the research found that: * 52% now say design has become more important, up from 44% last year. * 34% say AI's impact on collaboration has been significant or transformational, up from 14% last year. * 92% feel AI is essential to their future success as a designer or developer, and 63% feel it improves the quality of their work. Download the full report here. As of Q2 2026, approximately 85% of Figma's weekly active users are located outside the US, with the UK ranking number one in Europe. Companies such as ASOS, BT, NewsUK, Vodafone, and more have contributed to the over 15 million files which were created in the UK in the last 12 months. The new Figma London office follows similar expansions this year in Sao Paulo, Tokyo, Tel Aviv, Berlin, and New York.

Figma invests in the UK with expanded London office. With its new London office, Figma is getting closer to its customers and community. Today, Figma announced an expanded office in London. This deepens Figma's investment in one of its largest markets outside the United States, where two thirds of the FTSE 100 build with Figma as of Q2 2026. "The UK has one of the deepest concentrations of design and product talent anywhere, from the banks and retailers building new digital products to the design studios shaping the future of online interaction," says Daniel Barrett, Figma's SVP of International. "We're proud to expand our office in the heart of this incredible creative ecosystem." Figma's London office gives new life to restored Georgian and Victorian warehouses at Elder Yard on Norton Folgate, a part of the city that has been home to makers for hundreds of years. The Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, says: "I'm delighted that Figma is expanding its presence in London. Its decision to invest further in the capital is a vote of confidence in London's position as a global leader in technology, design, and the creative industries. London's exceptional talent, diversity, and culture of innovation make it one of the best places in the world to start and grow a business. Through our London Growth Plan, we are continuing to support the high-growth industries that create good jobs, boost productivity, and help us build a fairer and more prosperous city for everyone." The UK has always been a vibrant centre for innovation where businesses care deeply about design, collaboration, and increasingly, new ways of building with AI. Figma recently launched its annual global AI report, including findings from the UK. The report draws on three years of data, including 8,403 survey responses and 639 qualitative interviews with designers, developers, and product managers across ten markets: the United States, United Kingdom, Japan, Germany, France, Canada, Australia, Brazil, India, and South Korea. Globally, this year's study found that: * 41% of product builders say AI now meaningfully changes how their teams work together, up from just 7% two years ago. * 90% of respondents say design is at least as important as it was before AI, with 57% saying it matters more. * The number of developers doing design work rose from 44% to 60% in a single year, and the number of designers participating in development doubled to 41%. In the UK specifically, across 421 local respondents, the research found that: * 52% now say design has become more important, up from 44% last year. * 34% say AI's impact on collaboration has been significant or transformational, up from 14% last year. * 92% feel AI is essential to their future success as a designer or developer, and 63% feel it improves the quality of their work. Download the full report here. As of Q2 2026, approximately 85% of Figma's weekly active users are located outside the US, with the UK ranking number one in Europe. Companies such as ASOS, BT, NewsUK, Vodafone, and more have contributed to the over 15 million files which were created in the UK in the last 12 months. The new Figma London office follows similar expansions this year in Sao Paulo, Tokyo, Tel Aviv, Berlin, and New York.

Sidewinder brings arcade spinning-wheel controls to a Super Off Road-inspired game. Figma AI engineering VP Josh Clemm says he built the personal project with Codex, GPT-6 Astra and other tools; a full-game link has not been posted. Listen to article. 3 min 31 sec Josh Clemm, Figma's vice president of engineering for AI products, has built Sidewinder, a personal game project inspired by the arcade racer he played growing up, with a working version of the original game's defining control: a free-spinning steering wheel. Clemm posted a video on X on September 28th, 2026, saying he built the game with Codex, GPT-6 Astra, Blender, WebAssembly, Cloudflare and music from Suno, alongside what he called "a ton of human touch." My favorite arcade game growing up was Off-Road, so decided to make it myself (including actual arcade spinning wheel control). Here's Sidewinder - the full game url coming soon Built with Codex, GPT-6 astra (mostly), blender, WASM, cloudflare, music by @suno, and a ton of Show more The post shows a prototype, not a public launch. Clemm said the full game URL was "coming soon" and did not include a playable link. He described the wheel controls as working in a reply, and said he had increased their sensitivity to recreate the loose feel of the arcade original. The post does not detail how the control is connected, what hardware it uses or whether the game is intended for commercial release. The reference is likely Leland's 1989 Ironman Ivan Stewart's Super Off Road. The original supported as many as three players, with a steering wheel for each player; its tracks included one named Sidewinder. The International Arcade Museum's record describes the game as a competitive truck racer with wheel-equipped cabinets. Clemm's name for his project echoes one of those tracks, while his post points directly to the original's spinning-wheel control as a feature he wanted to reproduce. Clemm's tool list is his own account of the build, not a breakdown of which tasks the models handled or how much code they produced. He identifies GPT-6 Astra as the primary model and names Codex, a 3D tool, browser-oriented technologies and a music generator in the same workflow. The post provides no development timeline, cost, source code or performance measures. Its clearest technical claim is narrower: the wheel input works, and Clemm adjusted its sensitivity by hand. That detail puts the emphasis on integrating and tuning the interaction, rather than on a claim that an AI system generated a finished game on its own. The project fits a pattern in Clemm's work outside his executive roles. His personal project list includes Earthquake Alert, an Android app that he says has exceeded 2 million downloads, and Draft Punk, a fantasy-football draft tool he says he has maintained since 2010. He also built Yaddle, an AI-powered search product. Those projects span mobile software, sports and search; Sidewinder adds a game whose central challenge is recreating a physical arcade sensation in software. Clemm joined Figma as VP of Engineering for AI products shortly before the Sidewinder post, according to his announcement on LinkedIn. Before that, he led engineering at Dropbox and Uber and worked at LinkedIn, according to his career history. His public writing has argued that progress in AI agents depends on reliable software engineering as well as stronger models. Sidewinder's demo offers a small-scale example of that view: the tools are part of the build, while the distinctive control still takes deliberate implementation and tuning. For now, Sidewinder is best understood as a prototype and a demonstration of Clemm's personal build process. The announcement offers no price, release date, audience or commercial plan. Until a playable version is available, the working wheel controls are the project's most specific claim, and the part a viewer can assess only through the posted video. RuntimeWire, Inc. get virtually zero search traffic. Please consider sharing this story. Signal check Noise Signal Where does this story land? Drag the dial. OpenAI: GPT-6 Astra (batch). GPT-6 Astra is OpenAI's flagship model for demanding end-to-end work. Gpt 6 Astra. Modalities. Stay on the wire. Breaking startup & AI news, funding scoops, and launches as they happen. Follow @runtimewire on Threads and LinkedIn. Free forever - no credit card, no nagging.