Motion Designer - Animation & Graphics

💡 About Liftoff

Our Mission: Making the world a healthier place by gamifying fitness

Liftoff is the Duolingo of fitness, empowering anyone to start and stay at the gym so they develop healthier, more powerful habits.

We’re a mission-driven team that moves fast, owns the details, and does the work. We’re fully bootstrapped, profitable, and built from zero to $10M+ ARR in under three years.

🌟 About the Team

You'll join the Product team , working alongside our UI/UX Designer , Product Managers, Engineering, and Marketing.

Motion is what makes our product feel like a game instead of a spreadsheet. Levels, streaks, unlocks, and our mascot Jymbo all live or die on how they move.

🎯 About the Role

We're hiring a Motion & Graphics Designer to own everything that moves at Liftoff, in the app and in our marketing.

This is a motion-first role with real graphic design range . You'll animate characters, build in-app motion, cut marketing assets, and design the static graphics that sit around them.

Your core focus areas:

Character animation for Jymbo and the wider cast

In-app motion design: transitions, celebrations, unlocks, state changes

Animated graphics for features, shop items, and collectibles

Marketing assets: social, ads, App Store, launch content

Animatics and storyboards that let the team see a feature before it's built

Graphic design to support all of the above

✅ What Success Looks Like

Motion that ships in the product . Files hand off cleanly and perform on devices.

Jymbo feels alive. A character with a consistent personality across dozens of animations.

Marketing assets that travel. Content built to be shared, not just posted.

A documented motion language: timing, easing, and reusable patterns the whole team can pull from.

🛠️ What You’ll Do

Animate characters

Bring Jymbo to life with new rigs, poses, expressions, and reaction animations

Build a consistent character personality across quests, streaks, wins, and losses

Produce 2D vector animation built for reuse, not one-offs

Design in-app motion

Animate transitions, celebrations, unlocks, progress states, and micro-interactions

Ship Lottie and Rive files engineers can drop straight into React Native

Work inside performance budgets : file size, frame rate, battery, low-end devices

Build marketing and social assets

Cut motion content for social, ads, App Store, and launches

Design for shareability , including formats built to get reposted

Turn product features into short, legible visual stories

Storyboard and pitch with animatics

Take a feature brief and produce an animatic the team can react to

Use motion to pressure-test an idea before it becomes engineering work

Handle supporting graphic design

In-app graphics: splash screens, status cards, game-like items, collectibles

Illustration and vector artwork for features and campaigns

Keep your work consistent with the design system our UI/UX Designer maintains

🔍 You’ll Likely Succeed If You Have

We don't expect you to check every box. We care most about ownership, judgment, and shipping .

A strong animation reel with character work in it, not only kinetic type and logo stings

Adobe After Effects fluency, including export to Lottie

Rive experience for character and interactive UI motion

Figma fluency, enough to work inside an existing design system and hand off cleanly

Real graphic design ability. You can design the static asset, not just animate someone else's.

Shipped animation in a live product or campaign , with users who actually saw it

Clear written communication. You can spec motion, document timing, and explain your choices.

Comfort in a startup environment: short feedback loops, big ownership, no red tape

🌱 Bonus Attributes

Marketing and social assets you've shipped before , ideally with performance you can point to

Gaming animation experience (UI, characters, effects, game feel)

Mobile consumer animation experience at scale

Performance-conscious animation know-how on mobile

Familiarity with React Native Reanimated or Skia , enough to talk to engineers about what's feasible

3D or Blender ability for stills and short marketing pieces

Shipped in health, wellness, social, or gaming

Sustained depth in a craft, sport, or community outside of work

🧰 Tools & Tech Stack

You don't need prior experience with every tool, but you should be excited to work in this stack.

Motion: Adobe After Effects , Rive , Lottie

Design: Figma

App: React Native (Expo), Reanimated, Skia

Monetization: RevenueCat, Superwall

Experimentation / Analytics: Statsig

🙌 At Liftoff, You’ll Enjoy

Autonomy and Ownership: you are in charge of your time at Liftoff. Decide what you want to do, align with leadership, and go for it.

Top-of-the-Market Cash & Equity Compensation: we pay for high performers.

A World-Class Team: low-ego, high standards, and real ownership.

🤝 Interview Process

Hiring Manager Screening

Take-Home Challenge: animate one short in-app moment (a Jymbo reaction or an unlock), delivered as a Lottie or Rive file

Craft Deep Dive: reel walkthrough plus a live discussion of existing animation challenges in Liftoff

Work Week Trial (paid, simulating the real work environment)

💰 Compensation and Benefits

Competitive cash (based on level and scope)

Company-paid lunch every day (if you’re in office)

Lifetime Liftoff Pro membership

🌍 Equal Opportunity

Liftoff is an equal opportunity employer. We hire and grow talent based on strengths, potential, and performance, and we are committed to building an inclusive environment where everyone can do their best work.

🚀 To Apply, We Want

Your reel or motion portfolio , with character animation included

Source or export files where you can share them: Rive, Lottie JSON, After Effects projects

Any marketing or social assets you've made, with results if you have them

Your graphic design work: illustration, in-app assets, campaign graphics

Your resume and LinkedIn/X profile

A few lines on why this role