Best suited to mid-level motion designers with 8+ years experience who excel in building scalable motion systems and thrive in collaborative, in-person environments.
Derived from job-description analysis by Serendipath's career intelligence engine.
Original posting from Sierra via Ashby
ABOUT US
At Sierra, we’re creating a platform to help businesses build better, more human customer experiences with AI. We are primarily an in-person company based in San Francisco, with growing offices in Atlanta, New York, London, Paris, Madrid, Munich, Singapore, Tokyo, and Sydney.
We are guided by a set of values that are at the core of our actions and define our culture: Trust, Customer Obsession, Craftsmanship, Intensity, and Family. These values are the foundation of our work, and we are committed to upholding them in everything we do.
Our co-founders are Bret Taylor https://www.linkedin.com/in/brettaylor/ and Clay Bavor https://www.linkedin.com/in/claybavor/. Bret currently serves as Board Chair of OpenAI. Previously, he was co-CEO of Salesforce (which had acquired the company he founded, Quip) and CTO of Facebook. Bret was also one of Google's earliest product managers and co-creator of Google Maps. Before founding Sierra, Clay spent 18 years at Google, where he most recently led Google Labs. Earlier, he started and led Google’s AR/VR effort, Project Starline, and Google Lens. Before that, Clay led the product and design teams for Google Workspace.
ABOUT THE ROLE:
We’re looking for a Motion Designer to join Sierra’s Creative Studio and help define how our brand comes to life through movement. This role is ideal for someone who combines exceptional craft with systems thinking—someone who can create standout motion work while establishing the patterns, principles, and frameworks that make Sierra recognizable across every touchpoint.
As a member of Sierra’s design team, you’ll partner closely with brand designers, marketers, product teams, and external creative partners to bring stories, products, and experiences to life through animation. You’ll work across product launches, marketing campaigns, customer stories, events, social content, and emerging brand initiatives, helping translate complex AI concepts into compelling visual narratives.
This is an opportunity to help build Sierra’s motion practice from the ground up and shape how customers, partners, and the broader industry experience our brand.
WHAT YOU’LL DO:
- Create high-quality motion design work across marketing campaigns, product launches, customer stories, events, social content, and brand initiatives.
- Develop motion systems, principles, and animation frameworks that create consistency and recognition across the Sierra brand.
- Build scalable motion templates, guidelines, and documentation that
empower teams to create on-brand work efficiently.
- Partner closely with brand design, marketing, product, and leadership teams to elevate storytelling through animation and motion.
- Bring creative, from-the-ground-up thinking to brand campaigns and launches, exploring new ways to communicate Sierra’s vision and technology.
- Help establish best practices for motion across digital, experiential, social,
and product touchpoints.
- Mentor teammates and provide guidance on motion design craft, workflows,
and execution.
- Explore new creative possibilities enabled by AI while maintaining a high bar
for quality, taste, and craftsmanship.
- As a core member of Sierra’s design team, you will help shape the culture,
systems, and visual language that define our brand.
WHAT YOU’LL BRING:
- Proven Experience:Proven Experience: 8+ years of motion design experience with a portfolio that demonstrates exceptional craft, strong storytelling, and the ability to build scalable design systems. Experience supporting high-growth technology, SaaS, AI, B2B, or consumer brands is preferred.
- Motion Craft Excellence: Deep expertise in animation principles, timing, visual storytelling, typography, and motion systems. Ability to create work that is both visually compelling and strategically effective.
- Systems Thinking: Experience building motion design frameworks, reusable assets, and scalable standards that enable consistency across teams and channels.
- Great Collaboration: Strong ability to communicate creative ideas and partner effectively with designers, marketers, product teams, engineers, executives, and external collaborators.
- Excellent Communication: Ability to clearly articulate design rationale, creative direction, and motion principles to diverse stakeholders.
- Builder Mindset: Self-starter who thrives in ambiguity and enjoys defining new processes, systems, and creative opportunities from scratch.
- Creative Proficiency: Expert knowledge of After Effects, Premiere, Figma, and Adobe Creative Suite. Experience with Cinema 4D, Rive, Lottie, AI-powered creative tools, or emerging motion workflows is a plus.
OUR VALUES
- Trust: We build trust with our customers with our accountability, empathy, quality, and responsiveness. We build trust in AI by making it more accessible, safe, and useful. We build trust with each other by showing up for each other professionally and personally, creating an environment that enables all of us to do our best work.
- Customer Obsession: We deeply understand our customers’ business goals and relentlessly focus on driving outcomes, not just technical milestones. Everyone at the company knows and spends time with our customers. When our customer is having an issue, we drop everything and fix it.
- Craftsmanship: We get the details right, from the words on the page to the system architecture. We have good taste. When we notice something isn’t right, we take the time to fix it. We are proud of the products we produce. We continuously self-reflect to continuously self-improve.
- Intensity: We know we don’t have the luxury of patience. We play to win. We care about our product being the best, and when it isn’t, we fix it. When we fail, we talk about it openly and without blame so we succeed the next time.
- Family: We know that balance and intensity are compatible, and we model it in our actions and processes. We are the best technology company for parents. We support and respect each other and celebrate each other’s personal and professional achievements.
WHAT WE OFFER
We want our benefits to reflect our values and offer the following to full-time employees:
- Flexible (unlimited) paid time off
- Medical, dental, and vision benefits for you and your family
- Life insurance and disability benefits
- Retirement plan dependent on country of employment
- Parental leave
- Fertility and family building benefits through Carrot
- Lunch, as well as delicious snacks and coffee to keep you energized
- Discretionary benefit stipend giving people the ability to spend where it matters most
- Free alphorn lessons
These benefits are further detailed in Sierra's policies, may vary by region, and are subject to change at any time, consistent with the terms of any applicable compensation or benefits plans. Eligible full-time employees can participate in Sierra's equity plans subject to the terms of the applicable plans and policies.
BE YOU, WITH US
We're working to bring the transformative power of AI to every organization in the world. To do so, it is important to us that the diversity of our employees represents the diversity of our customers. We believe that our work and culture are better when we encourage, support, and respect different skills and experiences represented within our team. We encourage you to apply even if your experience doesn't precisely match the job description. We strive to evaluate all applicants consistently without regard to race, color, religion, gender, national origin, age, disability, veteran status, pregnancy, gender expression or identity, sexual orientation, citizenship, or any other legally protected class.
Source: Sierra careers (Ashby)