Senior 2D Character Animator

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 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 an