Motion Designer

OpenAI • San Francisco, CA

1d • $223,000 - $247,000

About The Position

OpenAI is seeking a Motion Designer to tell the stories behind its research by translating complex ideas, emerging capabilities, and researchers’ work into clear, engaging motion for films, launches, demos, and other communications. Working within the creative team, the Motion Designer partners with Research, Brand, and production teams from early concepts through final delivery. The role involves determining the visual approach a story needs, exploring creative directions, and bringing them to life through thoughtful design and animation.

This is a hands-on role for someone with strong motion craft, curiosity about unfamiliar subjects, and the ability to find a compelling visual approach while a brief is still taking shape. The Motion Designer contributes original work and reusable approaches to how OpenAI’s research is expressed in motion.

OpenAI is an AI research and deployment company dedicated to ensuring that general-purpose artificial intelligence benefits all of humanity. It aims to advance AI capabilities and deploy them safely, with safety and human needs at the core. OpenAI is an equal opportunity employer and is committed to providing reasonable accommodations to applicants with disabilities.

Requirements

• 7+ years of experience in motion design across films, campaigns, launches, or other narrative work.
• A strong portfolio demonstrating design judgment, animation craft, and the ability to carry an idea from concept through finished execution.
• Ability to explore an open-ended brief, propose a clear creative direction, and refine it through collaboration.
• Proficiency in After Effects and experience with Cinema 4D or comparable 3D tools, alongside editing and compositing workflows.
• Comfort working in Figma and sharing work across design and production teams.
• Strong understanding of typography, composition, timing, rhythm, and visual storytelling.
• Experience making complex or unfamiliar subjects understandable through design and motion.
• Experience working with subject matter experts and incorporating technical feedback without losing clarity or creative quality.
• Curiosity about AI and research, and willingness to learn enough about a subject to represent it thoughtfully.

Responsibilities

• Develop motion concepts for research stories with creative partners and subject matter experts, identifying effective ways to communicate the ideas.
• Design and produce high-quality 2D and 3D motion for research films, launches, demos, and supporting content.
• Apply and extend OpenAI’s visual and motion language while adapting to each story.
• Take projects from visual exploration, storyboards, and animatics through animation, compositing, and final delivery.
• Collaborate with designers, filmmakers, editors, producers, and researchers, bringing a motion perspective into the creative process early.
• Translate technical or abstract concepts into accessible visual sequences while preserving the meaning of the underlying work.
• Work with producers to scope projects, communicate dependencies, and maintain craft standards as priorities and timelines evolve.
• Present work clearly, explain creative decisions, and incorporate feedback from creative and technical partners.
• Develop reusable assets, templates, and workflows when they improve quality and make recurring work easier to produce.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Senior
• Education Level: No Education Listed