Rilla is hiring: Motion Designer & Character Animator (Contract-to-Hire) in New

Overview

Motion Designer & Character Animator (Contract-to-Hire)

At Rilla, you’ll be at the forefront of transforming our product into an experience that feels as intuitive, playful, and rewarding as the best consumer games. You’ll design UI animations, build out our character universe, and bring it all to life with bold, innovative motion and art styles. As part of our Games team, you’ll collaborate closely with engineering, product, and design to craft animations that don’t just surprise and delight, but actively inspire our customers to hit their goals and celebrate every one of their wins along the way. The primary playground will be our mobile and desktop app, with opportunities to extend Rilla’s motion language into our website, marketing creative, and other key brand moments. This role is perfect for someone obsessed with game mechanics, passionate about creating joyful, immersive product experiences, and ready to thrive in a high-autonomy, high-expectation environment.

What We Value

• An infinite learner. Someone who is relentless in their curiosity.
• A customer obsessive. Someone who deeply cares about delighting customers and solving real pains, not vanity metrics.
• A winning attitude. You thrive with extreme accountability, learning as a team, and both giving and receiving rapid feedback.
• Extreme empathy. Our customers are not tech companies. They live and work in the real world. Empathy is critical to arriving at correct solutions.
• Unafraid of failure. You take risks. You see failure as an opportunity to learn, grow, and be better the next time. You embrace failure as a path to new learning.

What We Require

• Motion Design Mastery: 2+ years of experience in motion design, interactive media, game development — or a strong portfolio of personal projects showcasing diverse styles and technical excellence. Proficiency in After Effects, with a strong eye for detail and aptitude in learning new tools
• Character Design: Skilled at bringing characters to life through AI-powered prompting and creative iteration, embracing video generation tools over traditional rigging, lighting, and shader pipelines
• Implementation Skills: Hands-on experience with Lottie, Rive, and After Effects for production-ready animations
• Technical Collaboration: Experience working with engineers on animation implementation, understanding technical constraints and optimization
• Sound and Haptic Integration: Knowledge of how motion, sound, and haptic feedback work together to create cohesive user experiences
• AI-Augmented Workflow: You're well-versed in AI tools and excited to experiment with new software to create compelling animations
• Impeccable Taste and Brand Intuition: Ability to translate Rilla’s dynamic brand energy and art style into a motion design language
• Passion for Games: An understanding of game design principles and player experience, with a sharp eye for what makes interactions addictive, rewarding, and fun using animations that engage and delight

Nice To Have

• Experience with Rive and real-time animations
• Examples of motion design work similar to Duolingo or other consumer game platforms
• Experience with performance optimization for web and mobile
• General 3D skills like modeling, texturing, rigging, and animating

Compensation

This role is contract, open to remote, with the ability for full-time conversion to be in-person in NYC. Compensation: $60-$100/hr.