Ello

Senior 2D Character Animator

San Francisco / Remote · Senior · Part-time

Sponsorship not specifiedDetected 14 days ago

UnityCollaboration

About the role

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 part-time contract basis and bring genuinely exceptional character performance to our interactive learning experiences.
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.

It listens as they read aloud, offers support when they stumble, and generates magical, personalized stories using generative AI.
You'll work closely with our Design and Engineering teams to animate and ship character states in Rive, our real-time animation tool.
Collaborate with our Art Director and technical animator to ensure quality and consistency across the character system
Build scalable animation libraries and naming conventions that others can extend
We want to create an environment where we can all be our best selves, use our strengths to take Ello forward, and develop our skills.

3-5+ years in character animation
ability to travel to SF occasionally
Because our mission is to support all children, our team must be representative of the communities we work in; we place significant emphasis on ensuring diversity in our team and inclusion in our culture.

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
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
Push back when it matters - care deeply about quality and advocate for the right creative decisions
Animate characters that are genuinely loved by hundreds of thousands of children
The following aren't required, but would significantly expand your impact and ownership on the team:
Real ownership: ship work you're proud of directly to kids and families every week

Animate character states - idle, reactions, celebrations, emotional responses - for Ello's interactive learning experiences in Rive
Ello is a public benefit corporation on a mission to maximize the potential of all children.
Our team has deep expertise in artificial intelligence, K-12 education, and child development across institutions such as Stanford, Berkeley, Google, Apple, and more.
We feel enormously privileged to be one of the few companies with the opportunity to take a shot at truly revolutionizing education with AI at this inflection point in technology.
We don't take it for granted, so we work urgently to turn that vision into reality.
we ship weekly, test directly with kids and families, and push the boundaries of what AI can do in education.
With the resources of the world's top investors and the heart of a public benefit corporation, we're here to revolutionize how children learn globally.
Featured on TIME's Best Inventions and Fortune's Change the World, Ello is a small, mission-driven team taking on one of the most important challenges of our time: to democratize education.

This listing is sourced directly from Ello's careers page and normalized into a canonical job model.