Senior 2D Character Animator

Ello • San Francisco, CA

5d • $10,000 - $13,000 • Hybrid

About The Position

Animation is how Ello's characters come alive — and it's one of the most visible expressions of our product's magic for kids and families. We're looking for a Senior Character Animator to join us on a full-time contract basis (~40 hours/week) and bring genuinely exceptional character performance to our interactive learning experiences.

You'll work closely with our Design and Engineering teams to animate and ship character states in Rive, our real-time animation tool. Your primary focus: crafting animation that is expressive, emotionally resonant, and delightful for children ages 4–8 — bringing personality and warmth to every interaction a child has with Ello.

The right person for this role is, above all, an outstanding character animator. If you also bring technical depth — state machine design, integration thinking, rigging — that's a significant bonus and will shape how much ownership you take across the animation pipeline. But we're hiring first for craft.

Requirements

• A portfolio or reel demonstrating exceptional character animation — expressive, emotionally resonant, some examples that appropriate for a children's audience, and with range of acting style
• Production experience with real-time, state-machine-driven animation tools (Rive preferred; Spine, Unity Animator, or similar accepted)
• Strong communicator who makes collaboration with engineers and other animators easy
• 3–5+ years in character animation
• US-compatible timezone; ability to travel to SF occasionally

Nice To Haves

• State machine architecture — experience designing states, transitions, layers, and trigger logic for real-time interactive products
• Integration experience — you've owned the handoff between animation and engineering, designing deliverables that land correctly in a live product without extensive back-and-forth
• Rigging — building skeletal structures, joint constraints, and deformation setups for character animation
• Children's or interactive products — experience animating for kids' products, interactive games, or edtech
• Animation-forward companies — background at studios like Duolingo, Toca Boca, Headspace, ClassDojo, Lingokids, Supercell, gaming studios, or similar

Responsibilities

• Animate character states — idle, reactions, celebrations, emotional responses — for Ello's interactive learning experiences in Rive
• Collaborate with our Art Director and technical animator to ensure quality and consistency across the character system
• Work with engineering to ensure your animations integrate cleanly into the live product
• Build scalable animation libraries and naming conventions that others can extend

Benefits

• Animate characters that are genuinely loved by hundreds of thousands of children
• Work at the intersection of AI, animation, and education — one of the most technically exciting spaces in consumer tech
• Collaborate with a world-class design and engineering team that cares deeply about craft
• Real ownership: ship work you’re proud of directly to kids and families every week

What This Job Offers

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