Animation Engineer (Interactive Characters)
A small finger pokes the octopus. He wriggles, starts counting his arms and gets lost at seven. Your rig makes that happen.
Tatako is hiring its first Animation Engineer to make the octopus feel alive in every lesson. The rig, the state machine that answers each tap and step, the one file every platform shares and the path from sketch to screen are yours to build.
About Tatako
Tatako makes short spoken English lessons for little ones. A lesson takes about five minutes, there is nothing to read, and a small round octopus keeps everyone company. He has eight arms, no socks, and usually loses count at seven.
Spanish stays the language of home, and Tatako adds a little English on top. An optional Spanish guide voice explains what to do and switches off anytime. Every lesson has three small steps: Hear it, say it. Touch it. Name it. In the last step the picture comes back without the word, and the child names it first.
The course has 369 first words and phrases, from “hello” and “mommy” to colors, animals and what the teacher says at preschool. Tatako works in the browser on any phone or tablet, and we start with Spanish-speaking families across the United States.
The role
- Remote and full-time, open to candidates who live in Florida, Texas, Georgia, North Carolina, Tennessee or Arizona
- Fluent English
- You report directly to the founders
By day 90, the octopus waves, wriggles and cheers from one shared file that behaves the same on the web, iOS and Android, and every new pose follows one clear path from sketch to a real phone.
What you will do
- Build his state machine: an idle, a wave hello, a cheer, counting his arms and losing track at seven, with blend states so every move flows into the next.
- Tie his moves to the lesson through data binding: a pose for each of the three steps, a cheer when the child touches the right picture in Touch it, and patience while the child names it.
- Make him ticklish on screen: Rive listeners that turn a tap on an arm into a wriggle, tuned so excited tapping never breaks a step.
- Write the contract the shared file lives by: view models, properties and triggers that the web, iOS and Android code all read, versioned and tested on each runtime.
- Shrink the file: vectors over bitmaps, shared components for eight arms that move alike, and bones and constraints in place of extra drawings.
- Keep him smooth on older phones: measure what meshes, clipping and blend states cost on real devices, and simplify before a frame runs late.
- Build the art pipeline: a model sheet with eight arms and no socks, naming and layer rules for every file, and reviews on real phones before anything ships.
What you bring
- 4+ years in interactive or character animation for apps or games, with work running in production on phones.
- Expert Rive: the editor, State Machine, data binding with view models, components, listeners, bones and meshes.
- Runtime know-how: the Rive runtimes for web, iOS and Android, TypeScript for the web side, and enough Swift and Kotlin to pair with the app engineers.
- An animator’s eye: timing, anticipation, squash and stretch, and a character who stays himself in every pose.
- Lottie for small interface moments, and the judgment to know when a state machine is worth it.
- Files other people can work in: clean naming, tidy hierarchies and notes that let an illustrator or engineer pick up where you left off.
Bonus points
- You have animated a character for a kids app or game.
- You draw, and can sketch a new pose for the octopus yourself.
Why you will love it
- The octopus is the face of Tatako, and you decide how he moves.
- A born comedian to animate: eight arms, no socks and a very ticklish streak.
- Your work runs everywhere at once: one file, three platforms, every lesson.
How to apply
Meet the octopus at tatako.com, then email [email protected] with your LinkedIn profile or portfolio. Make sure it shows an interactive character you rigged and shipped.
If your experience matches the role, our team will get in touch to discuss next steps.