Staff Motion Designer

Pinterest; Los Angeles (CA); On-site; USD 159,000 - 327,000; Full time

Job summary

Pinterest is seeking a Staff Motion Designer for the Design Innovation team in Los Angeles, CA (onsite). You will define and evolve Pinterest’s motion language across product surfaces and flagship, AI-forward experiences, building scalable motion systems and tooling, and partnering with engineering to ship motion that is intentional, coherent, accessible, and reusable.

You will lead motion direction for flagship experiences, collaborate with cross‑functional teams to connect feature work to a

Qualifications

• 8+ years of experience in motion design, product design, interaction design, or a related field.
• Influence on design-system direction and horizontal impact across teams.
• Deep knowledge of timing, choreography, easing, spring behavior, feedback, and transitions.

Responsibilities

• Define and evolve Pinterest’s motion design language across product surfaces and flagship experiences.
• Set motion direction for AI-forward experiences, clarifying state, cause and effect, hierarchy, feedback, and system responsiveness.
• Collaborate with designers, engineers, PMs, researchers, and content designers to connect work to a shared motion strategy.

Skills

Motion design

Design systems

Prototyping

Education

Bachelor’s degree or equivalent

Job description

Pinterest is hiring a Staff Motion Designer for the Design Innovation team in Los Angeles, CA (onsite). This role defines and evolves Pinterest’s motion design language across product surfaces and flagship, AI-forward experiences. You’ll work hands‑on and cross‑functionally to build scalable motion systems, prototype quickly, develop lightweight tooling, and partner with engineering to ship motion that is intentional, coherent, accessible, and reusable.

What you’ll do

• Define and evolve Pinterest’s motion design language, including interaction and transition patterns, timing and tokens, specifications, and guidance.
• Set motion direction for flagship and AI-forward experiences, using motion to clarify state, cause and effect, hierarchy, feedback, progress, and system responsiveness.
• Partner with product designers, engineers, product managers, researchers, and content designers to connect feature work to a shared motion strategy and improve the quality of what ships.
• Convert high‑craft explorations into scalable design system contributions that reduce ad hoc implementation and improve consistency.
• Rapidly prototype and validate motion ideas using the right medium, including motion studies, design tools, code, AI-enabled tools, or custom prototypes.
• Work closely with engineering throughout implementation to handle technically ambitious animation while balancing performance, platform conventions, accessibility, and maintainability.
• Develop or enable lightweight tools, templates, and workflows that help designers explore and help engineering build sophisticated animations reliably.
• Stay current with AI-enabled motion and visual-creation tools, applying them strategically while maintaining critical thinking and quality validation.
• Run motion quality reviews, provide actionable feedback, and mentor others on motion principles, systems thinking, prototype craft, and productive engineering partnership.
• Communicate motion rationale, tradeoffs, and user impact to teams and leaders to build alignment around a high bar for craft and system quality.

What we’re looking for

• 8+ years of experience in motion design, product design, interaction design, or a closely related field, with a portfolio showing exceptional motion craft in shipped digital products or platforms.
• A staff or principal-level track record influencing horizontally, shaping design-system direction, and raising quality without relying on formal authority.
• Deep knowledge of motion and interaction principles, including timing, choreography, easing, spring behavior, feedback, and transitions, plus strong judgment about usability, comprehension, emotion, and trust.
• Proven experience building or materially evolving scalable motion systems such as principles, token sets, pattern libraries, documentation, tooling, and governance.
• Hands‑on experience partnering with engineers to implement complex motion, with practical fluency in performance, constraints, platform conventions, handoff, and quality assurance.
• A design technologist mindset, comfortable using prototyping tools, AI, and code when helpful for exploring ideas and improving how teams design and build.
• Strong product and systems thinking, connecting craft decisions to accessibility, implementation efficiency, user needs, strategy, and measurable impact.
• Excellent communication and storytelling skills for synthesizing ambiguity, documenting clearly, facilitating critique, and aligning cross‑functional partners.
• Collaborative, low‑ego approach with a passion for learning, experimentation, mentoring, and inclusive design, including considering reduced‑motion preferences, cognitive load, and diverse user needs.
• A Bachelor’s degree in design, animation, human‑computer interaction, a related field, or equivalent experience.

Bonus points

• Experience defining motion for AI, conversational, multimodal, or other emerging product experiences.
• Experience contributing to platform‑wide design systems, public motion systems, or open‑source animation libraries.
• Experience building designer‑facing or engineer‑facing tools to improve motion prototyping, handoff, or implementation quality.
• Experience in large‑scale consumer products, personalization, or rapid experimentation environments.

Location, schedule, and relocation

This role is onsite in Los Angeles, CA. In‑person collaboration is expected 1–2 times every 6-months, and the role can be situated anywhere in the country. This position is not eligible for relocation assistance.

Salary range: USD 158,765 to 326,870 per year.