Engineer in Residence: Gesture Games
What you'll build
- A playable game where gesture interaction is the core mechanic, not a novelty input mode pasted on top.
- A low-latency recognition loop that maps hand movement into responsive gameplay.
- Calibration, feedback, and fail-state handling so the game remains usable in messy real-world environments.
- A technical base that could expand into a reusable gesture-recognition platform over time.
What you'll do
- Own the prototype across game loop, recognition pipeline, UX feedback, and on-device performance.
- Make smart tradeoffs between model quality, latency, battery, and actual game feel.
- Test the experience quickly with real players and learn where delight or frustration shows up.
- Build the first product wedge while keeping an eye on what could become platform IP.
- Work with AI Fund's build team on gameplay scope, technical feasibility, and expansion paths.
What you need
- Experience in computer vision, on-device ML, pose or gesture recognition, or mobile game development.
- Strong engineering ability across inference pipelines, UX responsiveness, and real-time system constraints.
- A feel for interaction design and what makes a game mechanic fun rather than technically clever.
- The ability to ship rough but playable prototypes quickly.
- You know how to use AI coding assistants and modern AI tools to accelerate implementation without shipping brittle game logic.
- US work authorization. We are unable to sponsor visas for this role.
Helpful but not required
Experience with Unity, Unreal, CoreML, TFLite, MediaPipe, AR, or motion capture systems.
Experience shipping mobile games or highly interactive consumer products.
Experience optimizing real-time pipelines for noisy camera input.
Who this is for
A builder who likes the combination of ML systems, interaction design, and fast consumer product feedback loops.
Someone who wants to create a new input pattern instead of incrementally improving an existing category.
What to know upfront
This is a 12-week, full-time, on-site residency in Mountain View, California.
Not every residency becomes a company. The goal is to pressure-test the idea quickly and honestly with real users and customers.
You will be building an AI Fund idea, not bringing your own startup idea into the program.
The process typically includes a Builder Event or equivalent working conversation, then a 48-hour Builder Challenge, then panel review with AI Fund build leadership.
The compensation is intentionally modest during the residency because the upside, if the idea works, is a founder-level role.
Compensation
$10,000/month for 12 weeks ($30,000 total). This is a contract role during the residency. If the build leads to a funded company, the next step is a founder-level role with meaningful equity upside.