Position: Head of Character Animation
Company: Surprise
Experience required: 3y
English level: upper

Surprise.com is on a mission to help people make a positive impact on themselves, their teams, and their communities. Our flagship product, Surprise for Teams™, is the world’s first and only SuccessOS™. Surprise for Teams makes it fun and irresistible to perform better, which creates a positive, long-lasting impact on people and their organizations.

We are looking for an experienced and talented Head of Animation Studio to join our teams in Kyiv (Gulliver) or Lviv (Magnus). You will be responsible for creating thousands of delightful, witty, and comical short animated scenes (< 7 seconds) and micro-animations. These scenes are the defining characteristic of our products.

An ideal candidate for this position is a senior, multi-talented 2D animator, illustrator and producer who is obsessed with details and who has worked on hundreds of animated scenes, cartoons, and illustrations.

What will you be doing?

Leading an international team of 20+ motion designers and animators, defining the style and personality of thousands of short scenes;
Taking a scene from storyboard to full-color delivery and enhancing it along the way with creative subtleties;
Ensuring that each scene is filled with character, wit, delightfulness, subtlety, and playfulness;
Ensuring that each scene represents the Surprise brand in creative and technical excellence;
Working with the Head of Design to make sure your team has all the art / assets needed;
Owning the creative vision for the scenes and ensuring that the delivered product is ready to go live.

What are we looking for?

Upper Intermediate English or better (B2+);
5+ years as a lead 2D animator/illustrator;
Expert level knowledge of all animation tools, systems, and techniques – including Adobe After Effects;
Razor-sharp attention to detail and scene composition;
Demonstrated ability to lead a large team and deliver work on time;
Able to establish a consistent and stunning brand style that enhances our app experience.
About us
At Surprise.com, we’re committed to hiring builders who are inspired by our team’s guiding principle: to derive a tremendous sense of purpose from the inner quest for excellence itself, being driven from within to make anything we touch be the best it can be. We take pride in developing deep user understanding, obsess about the details, and go the extra mile to show our users we love them. We are first and foremost customer driven – engineering, product and design collaborate as equals to create a phenomenal end user experience. We’re also home for numerous internal teams building internally facing tools for customer service, finance, and others, to keep the operation afloat.

Benefits
Extremely competitive salary for the local market
20 working days of paid vacation
15 days of paid sick leave
Modern comfortable offices in Kyiv (Gulliver) and Lviv (Magnus)
And, of course, we get Surprises internally.