Motion Designer

About the Team OpenAI didn’t begin as a traditional company. It began as an idea: that artificial intelligence could be developed in a way that benefits everyone. As a creative team, our role is to help make sure the work behind that idea is understood, as it leaves the lab and meets the world. This company works at the frontier of intelligence. Like any frontier, it’s unfinished, constantly shifting, and still being explored. Our job is to stay close to that uncertainty and help shape how this story gets told, in a way that feels grounded and human. We do this through campaigns, launches, films, brand systems, and work that doesn’t fit neatly into any of those categories yet. This team is for people who want to help shape something from the beginning. About the Role OpenAI is seeking a Motion Designer to help tell the stories behind our research. You’ll translate complex ideas, emerging capabilities, and the work of our researchers into clear, engaging motion across films, launches, demos, and other communications. Working within the creative team, you’ll partner with Research, Brand, and production teams to shape work from early concepts through final delivery. You’ll help determine what a story needs visually, explore different approaches, and bring those ideas to life through thoughtful design and animation. This is a hands-on role for someone with strong motion craft, curiosity about unfamiliar subjects, and the ability to find a compelling visual approach when the brief is still taking shape. You’ll contribute to how OpenAI’s research is expressed in motion, developing original work and reusable approaches that help the team build on what it learns. In this role, you will: - Develop motion concepts for research stories, working with creative partners and subject matter experts to understand the ideas and identify how best to communicate them. - Design and produce high-quality 2D and 3D motion for research films, launches, demos, and supporting content. - Apply and extend OpenAI’s visual and motion language, balancing consistency with the needs of each story. - Take work from visual exploration, storyboards, and animatics through animation, compositing, and final delivery. - Collaborate closely with designers, filmmakers, editors, producers, and researchers, bringing a motion perspective into the creative process early. - Translate technical or abstract concepts into visual sequences that are accessible to a broad audience while preserving the meaning of the underlying work. - Work with producers to scope projects, communicate dependencies, and maintain a high standard of craft as priorities and timelines evolve. - Present work clearly, explain creative decisions, and incorporate feedback from creative and technical partners. - Develop reusable assets, templates, and workflows where they improve quality and make recurring work easier to produce. You might thrive in this role if you have: - 7+ years of experience in motion design across films, campaigns, launches, or other narrative work. - A strong portfolio demonstrating design judgment, animation craft, and the ability to carry an idea from concept through finished execution. - The ability to explore an open-ended brief, propose a clear creative direction, and refine it through collaboration. - Proficiency in After Effects and experience with Cinema 4D or comparable 3D tools, alongside editing and compositing workflows. - Comfort working in Figma and sharing work across design and production teams. - A strong understanding of typography, composition, timing, rhythm, and visual storytelling. - Experience making complex or unfamiliar subjects understandable through design and motion. - Experience working with subject matter experts an