Temporary Animation Character Design Jobs in New York

Fauna Robotics is building capable, safe, and delightful robots for everyday life. We are hiring a Principal UX Designer to define what it feels like to live with a Fauna robot: how it earns trust, communicates intent, expresses character, and becomes a valued presence in someone's home.
You will shape the robot's interaction vocabulary alongside researchers, scientists, and engineers. You will create the principles and artifacts that guide how the entire team designs and builds interactions. And you will personally drive key design work from concept through production as the product moves toward launch. Our process is iterative and demo-led: build fast, evaluate honestly, and let each round of feedback sharpen the next.
The right candidate thinks in terms of character, emotion, and behavior. They're comfortable working across physical expression, conversational interaction, and end-to-end experience journeys. They've designed systems that evolve over time and build relationships with people. And they're excited about the opportunity to define what it means for robots to belong in our lives.
Key job responsibilities
- Shape the robot's personality and identity by defining a north-star experience vision for how people live with, interact with, and develop relationships with Fauna's robots
- Establish interaction design principles that guide how the team approaches robot interactions
- Create the artifacts that make interaction concepts tangible and evaluable: storyboards, behavioral scripts, journey maps, interaction flows, motion/timing studies, and concept videos
- Partner with the science and engineering teams to ensure design intent is achievable within technical constraints - and push back when the constraints should change
- Direct user research that exposes our blind spots through systematic, principled exploration
- Mentor and elevate the team's design craft by establishing critique rituals, raising the bar for interaction quality, and growing the practice as the team scales
About the team
Fauna Robotics, an Amazon company, is building capable, safe, and genuinely delightful robots for everyday life. Our goal is simple: make robots people actually want to live and interact with in everyday human spaces.
Our HRI (Human-Robot Interaction) team focuses on making robots feel like companions - a partner that listens, responds, and feels present. The team spans reasoning, perception, audio, and expressive robotics. Your work defines the physical vocabulary that ties it all together: how a robot communicates what it's thinking and feeling.
BASIC QUALIFICATIONS
- 10+ years of professional experience in UX design, interaction design, or experience design
- Portfolio demonstrating work on character-driven, embodied, conversational, or physically interactive systems
- Experience defining experience strategy and interaction frameworks for novel product categories
- Demonstrated ability to work across disciplines and influence technical direction through design
- Experience creating and communicating design vision through narrative artifacts (storyboards, journey maps, concept videos, behavioral prototypes)
PREFERRED QUALIFICATIONS
- Experience designing for physically embodied systems: robots, smart home devices, or physical computing
- Background in conversational or voice-first interaction design (voice assistants, dialogue systems, AI companions)
- Experience with character design, animation direction, or personality-driven interaction (games, entertainment, social AI)
- Familiarity with AI/ML-powered systems and designing for non-deterministic behavior
- Experience directing user research in novel interaction domains where existing patterns don't apply
Amazon is an equal opportunity employer and does not discriminate on the basis of protected veteran status, disability, or other legally protected status.
Our inclusive culture empowers Amazonians to deliver the best results for our customers. If you have a disability and need a workplace accommodation or adjustment during the application and hiring process, including support for the interview or onboarding process, please visit https://amazon.jobs/content/en/how-we-hire/accommodations for more information. If the country/region you're applying in isn't listed, please contact your Recruiting Partner.
The base salary range for this position is listed below. Your Amazon package will include sign-on payments and restricted stock units (RSUs). Final compensation will be determined based on factors including experience, qualifications, and location. Amazon also offers comprehensive benefits including health insurance (medical, dental, vision, prescription, Basic Life & AD&D insurance and option for Supplemental life plans, EAP, Mental Health Support, Medical Advice Line, Flexible Spending Accounts, Adoption and Surrogacy Reimbursement coverage), 401(k) matching, paid time off, and parental leave. Learn more about our benefits at https://amazon.jobs/en/benefits.
USA, NY, New York - 180,400.00 - 244,000.00 USD annually