Senior Character Animator at Ello

Our mission at Ello is simple and urgent: Maximize the potential of every child, everywhere. We're building the world's first AI teacher to close that gap: one that listens, speaks, adapts, and inspires, just like the best human educators. Our first product, Read with Ello, is already helping tens of thousands of kids each week learn to read. It listens as they read aloud, offers support when they stumble, and generates magical, personalized stories using generative AI. It works — and kids love it. Now, we're scaling that success into something even bigger: a complete AI teacher for all children. We're building a real-time learning platform — one that combines language, speech, and memory to power personalized, interactive education for kids worldwide. We're moving fast: 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. 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 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. WHAT YOU'LL WORK ON - 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 REQUIRED QUALIFICATIONS - 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 strongly 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 HAVE The following aren't required, but would significantly expand your impact and ownership on the team: - 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 WE LOOK FOR CANDIDATES WHO - Animate with intent — every timing decision serves the character's emotional state and the child's learning moment - Think in systems, not just scenes — build animation that can be reused, extended, and handed off cleanly - Own their queue — surface risks early, flag scope changes proactively, and don't wait to be managed - Push back when it matters — care deeply about quality and advocate for the right creative decisions REASONS TO JOIN US - 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 ABOUT ELLO Ello is a public benefit corporation on a mission to maximize the potential of all children. We're currently around 50 people, headquartered in San Francisco with another office in Nairobi, Kenya. 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 were part of Y Combinator's W20 batch and are funded by world-class investors, including Goodwater Capital, Homebrew, Reed Hastings, Common Sense Growth, Ravensburger, Project A Ventures, Reach Capital, Khosla Ventures, WndrCo, Visible Ventures, and K9 Ventures. We're a small, collaborative team that takes each other's voices seriously. 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. 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 want to create an environment where we can all be our best selves, use our strengths to take Ello forward, and develop our skills. We want to have fun while working hard to do impactful things we're proud of — and we believe it's possible to do both. At Ello, diversity is a moral imperative and a competitive advantage. We do not discriminate based on race, religion, skin color, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, or disability status. We plan and structure our interviews to assess skills and experience directly. If you need accommodations throughout the interview process, please contact [Upgrade to PRO to see contact].