Senior Robot Animator: Motion Designer for Real & Sim

skildai-careers; San Mateo (CA); On-site; USD 100,000 - 300,000; Full time

Job summary

Skild AI in California seeks a Senior Robot Animator to bring robots to life, rig, animate, and refine motion for simulation and physical machines. This animation-first role emphasizes craft, with collaboration across robotics, simulation, and hardware teams.

You will build motion libraries, retarget captured data, and contribute to previz and design studies. The ideal candidate has 5+ years of professional animation experience, plus expertise in Maya or Blender and strong weight and timing

Qualifications

• 5+ years animating professionally in film/VFX, games, or robotics.
• Expert keyframe animation with a strong sense of weight, timing, and body mechanics.
• Rigging experience with mechanical or articulated characters: constraints, IK/FK, joint limits, mechanism-accurate setups.
• Comfortable cleaning, editing, and retargeting motion capture onto non-human skeletons.
• Background working with humanoid or robotic characters in simulation or the real world.
• Familiarity with controls/rigid-body dynamics/simulation is a plus.

Responsibilities

• Author robot motion in Maya (or Blender) using keyframe, procedural, and capture-based techniques.
• Work with robotics engineers to take motion from digital content creation to real hardware.
• Choreograph and time performances, including multi-robot sequences and motion cut to music or camera.
• Deliver finished rendered work as well as sequences performed by the machines themselves.
• Build motion libraries and retargeting that support our simulation and machine learning work.
• Partner with our hardware teams on previz and range-of-motion studies that inform design.

Skills

Keyframe Animation

Rigging

Motion Capture

Robot Animation

Simulation

Weight & Timing

Tools

Maya

Blender

Job description

Skild AI in California seeks a Senior Robot Animator to bring robots to life, rig, animate, and refine motion for simulation and physical machines. This animation-first role emphasizes craft, with collaboration across robotics, simulation, and hardware teams.

You will build motion libraries, retarget captured data, and contribute to previz and design studies. The ideal candidate has 5+ years of professional animation experience, plus expertise in Maya or Blender and strong weight and timing