Senior Animator

Level • Austin, TX

4d

About The Position

Level is a learning technology company dedicated to helping students build real academic and life skills with confidence and joy. We combine proven curriculum principles with world class interactive design to make meaningful practice something students want to come back to, not something they struggle through. We support what teachers, schools, and parents are already doing by increasing student engagement with high quality, standards aligned practice that reinforces classroom learning. That’s why we’re building: For students: Rewarding and motivating learning experiences that meet students where they are to build real academic proficiency. For educators: Tools that fit naturally into instruction and help students stay engaged while reducing teacher workload. For parents: Activities that help your kid catch up or get ahead, build confidence, and minimize homework battles, whether learning at school or at home. We are committed to helping every person maximize their potential and live a life of meaning. It’s a difficult problem that requires brilliant people and tremendous effort over time. Level is seeking a talented and experienced Senior Animator to join our growing in-house team to support our Guide Team. You'll be instrumental in shaping the movement, emotion, and personality of our characters through performance-driven animation, facial animation, lip sync, and dialogue scenes. A significant part of this role involves procedural animation, including collaborating with engineers to define direction and ensure systems reflect the intended performances. As a Senior Animator you will also be working closely with artists and technical artists, your work will have a direct impact on the project’s cinematic storytelling and narrative.

Requirements

• 5+ years of experience as a narrative/cinematic animator, with a strong portfolio demonstrating polished, stylized acting character animation.
• Proficiency in industry-standard animation tools such as Maya.
• Experience integrating animations into a game engine.
• Solid understanding of animation principles (timing, weight, anticipation, etc.) and how they apply in a gameplay context.
• Familiarity with narrative or emotionally expressive animation work.
• Collaborative mindset and excellent communication skills; comfortable working across disciplines.

Nice To Haves

• Prior experience on a shipped game, ideally in a small-to-mid-size studio environment.
• Animation Graph or State Machine Experience
• Scripting knowledge (e.g., Python, Blueprint, or Unity C#) to enhance animation systems or automate tasks.
• Godot experience

Responsibilities

• Design and produce high-quality cinematic/narrative animations (character) that align with artistic vision.
• Collaborate closely with the Character teams to ensure animations enhance storytelling, and emotional impact.
• Giving feedback and direction to tech artists to get the highest fidelity animation possible
• Implement and iterate animations in-engine (e.g., Unity or Unreal Engine), with awareness of real-time performance and technical limitations.
• Participate in regular review sessions, providing and receiving feedback to continually refine animation quality.

What This Job Offers

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