Visual Data Curation Specialist

About the role

Cantina Labs develops social AI technologies, including real-time models that enable expressive, lifelike characters, and its flagship platform is called Cantina. It is looking for a Visual Data Curation Specialist to join its growing research team in Singapore. You will identify and evaluate image and video sources that support the development of video generation and multimodal models, working closely with researchers and engineers to define sourcing priorities and assess content quality and relevance.

Key responsibilities

• Identify and evaluate image and video sources across creator communities, specialist websites, archives and platforms such as YouTube, TikTok, Bilibili, Instagram and Vimeo.
• Partner with researchers to turn model development priorities into sourcing briefs, selection criteria and content categories.
• Assess content on aesthetics, technical quality and research relevance, including composition, lighting, resolution, camera movement, subject motion and visual consistency.
• Build and maintain a structured source catalogue with representative examples, metadata, quality assessments and recommendations.
• Spot gaps in coverage across subjects, styles, environments and motion types and propose targeted sourcing approaches.
• Review sample content with research and engineering colleagues, refine selection criteria and document source provenance and usage information, flagging licensing or access issues.
• Develop repeatable curation workflows, tagging systems and quality guidelines, and identify tools that improve efficiency and consistency.

Required profile

• Strong visual judgment and the ability to explain how an image or video meets creative, technical or research requirements.
• A background in film, photography, animation, design, visual arts, media or a related field, shown through education, experience or a portfolio; prior machine learning experience is not required.
• Strong research skills and a systematic approach to organising information.
• Clear communication and the ability to work independently and take ownership of work quality.
• Nice to have: hands-on experience in photography, filmmaking, video editing or animation; content research, editorial curation or archive research; familiarity with dataset curation, annotation or model evaluation; experience with generative image or video tools, basic scripting, SQL or workflow automation.

What we offer

• Competitive salary and company equity.
• Personal time off and paid holidays.
• Health insurance and global travel insurance.
• Monthly spending stipend of $500 (~S$635).
• All equipment needed for a home office.