Staff Motion Designer, Design Innovation

Pinterest•San Francisco, CA

8d•Remote

About The Position

Pinterest is seeking a Staff Motion Designer to join its Design Innovation team and define and evolve the motion design language across product surfaces and flagship features. This hands-on, horizontal role combines motion craft leadership, systems thinking, and design technology. The designer will establish reusable motion principles, patterns, tokens, specifications, and implementation guidance within the design system; partner with product and engineering teams on interaction challenges; and create tools and prototypes that support high-quality motion at scale. The work spans individual interactions and the coherence of the overall Pinterest experience. The role includes leading motion direction for flagship and AI-forward experiences, translating explorations into scalable design-system contributions, and partnering with engineering to deliver technically ambitious animations while considering performance, platform conventions, accessibility, and maintainability. The designer will use appropriate tools—including design tools, code, AI-enabled tools, and custom prototypes—to explore and validate ideas, and will help teams improve their workflows. They will also review motion quality, mentor designers, and communicate the reasoning and user impact behind decisions. The position can be based anywhere in the country and requires in-office collaboration one to two times every six months. It is not eligible for relocation assistance.

Requirements

At least 8 years of experience in motion design, product design, interaction design, or a closely related discipline, with a portfolio demonstrating exceptional motion craft in shipped digital products or platforms.
Staff- or principal-level experience influencing across teams, shaping product or design-system direction, and raising quality without relying on formal authority.
Deep command of motion and interaction design principles, including timing, choreography, easing, spring behavior, feedback, and transitions, and sound judgment about when motion improves usability, comprehension, emotion, and trust.
Experience creating or materially evolving scalable motion systems, such as principles, token sets, pattern libraries, documentation, tooling, and governance adopted across products and platforms.
Demonstrated experience partnering closely with engineers to implement complex motion, with practical fluency in performance, technical constraints, platform conventions, handoff, and quality assurance.
Comfort using prototyping tools, AI, and code or technical workflows to explore ideas, communicate intent, and improve design and development processes.
Strong product and systems thinking, connecting craft decisions to user needs, product strategy, accessibility, implementation efficiency, and measurable impact.
Excellent communication and storytelling skills, including synthesizing ambiguity, creating clear documentation, facilitating constructive critique, and aligning cross-functional partners.
Collaborative, low-ego approach and enthusiasm for learning, experimentation, mentoring, and inclusive design.
Consideration of reduced-motion preferences, cognitive load, and diverse user needs from the beginning of the design process.
Bachelor’s degree in design, animation, human-computer interaction, or a related field, or equivalent experience.

Nice To Haves

Experience defining motion for AI, conversational, multimodal, or other emerging product experiences.
Experience contributing to platform-wide design systems, public motion systems, or open-source animation libraries.
Experience building designer-facing or engineer-facing tools that improve motion prototyping, handoff, or implementation quality.
Experience in large-scale consumer products, personalization, or rapid experimentation environments.

Responsibilities

Define and evolve Pinterest’s motion design language, including principles, interaction and transition patterns, timing, tokens, specifications, and guidance.
Lead motion direction for flagship and AI-forward experiences, using motion to clarify state, cause and effect, hierarchy, feedback, progress, and system responsiveness.
Partner with product designers, engineers, product managers, researchers, and content designers to connect feature work to a shared motion strategy and improve shipped experiences.
Turn high-craft explorations into scalable design-system contributions that reduce ad hoc implementation, improve consistency, and help teams work efficiently.
Rapidly prototype and validate motion ideas using motion studies, design tools, code, AI-enabled tools, or custom prototypes.
Work with engineering during implementation to solve ambitious animation challenges while balancing performance, platform conventions, accessibility, and maintainability.
Develop or enable lightweight tools, templates, and workflows for motion exploration and reliable animation implementation.
Apply AI-enabled motion and visual-creation tools strategically to improve ideation, prototyping, and production, while validating quality and owning final outcomes.
Conduct motion quality reviews, provide actionable feedback, and mentor designers in motion principles, systems thinking, prototyping, and engineering partnership.
Explain the rationale, tradeoffs, and user impact behind motion decisions and build alignment around motion craft and system quality.