The Role

You are an experienced motion designer who lives and breathes animation, storytelling, and systems-thinking. You craft motion work that’s imaginative, strategic, and seamlessly extends brand worlds. You bring fresh ideas, a sharp design sensibility, and a collaborative spirit to everything you do.

You’ll help define and push the boundaries of motion at Koto — leading projects, inspiring the team, and creating brand expressions that move (literally and emotionally).

Your Responsibilities

1. Create brand-defining motion. You design high-quality animation systems — from motion graphics to character animation to full motion identities — with clarity, originality, and intent. You assist with and can translate our immersion and strategic phases of work into motion principles and execution.

2. Collaborate across disciplines. You partner with strategists, designers, and clients to bring motion thinking into the brand process early and often. You can take direction and action feedback to move the work forward.

3. Present with confidence. You help build compelling client presentations and know how to talk through your work with clarity and energy.

4. Work hands-on. You spend significant time animating and designing, and are skilled in After Effects, Figma, Final Cut, 3D software, and Pitch.

5. Stay in sync. You manage your time effectively, know how to manage your calendar and meetings, and can contribute to a smooth creative process.

6. Bring the Koto spirit. You’re excited to be in the New York studio, add to our creative culture, and occasionally travel to collaborate globally.

Our Responsibilities

1. We’ll ensure you have regular access to your manager and team leads to support your development and career path.

2. We actively reward strong performance with promotions, salary increases, and a discretionary annual bonus of up to 10%.

3. We’re committed to creating an inclusive and equitable workplace for all employees.

4. We support family leave and offer significant paid maternity and paternity time

5. We encourage you to take your time off: 25 vacation days annually, 10+ U.S. holidays, and a full studio closure between Christmas and New Year

6. We offer a 401(k) with a 4% company match

7. We provide a monthly $105 “employee wellness” budget through Juno.

8. We give you access to YCN and fund relevant training and development opportunities

9. We reward tenure with $5,000 and five extra days off at five years, and $10,000 and four weeks off at ten years

10. We support work-from-anywhere opportunities across our five global studios, with advanced planning.

Our Culture

• At Koto, we encourage our team to be ‘rationally optimistic’ about the potential of our work, our clients, their businesses, and the power of brand.
• We pursue the best briefs, aim to inspire meaningful work, and for those interested, provide an opportunity to make the work of their lives. We are actively cultivating leadership, culture, and spaces to encourage this.
• We work in person with an optional WFH day on Friday, and an additional two weeks of remote work a year. We believe this produces the best work, mentoring opportunities, collective learning, and culture.
• We encourage autonomy in each member of our team, allowing them to manage their own time, hours, and personal commitments appropriately to complete work.