Designer Job at Ello (We're hiring!) in San Francisco

Overview

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Our mission at Ello is simple and urgent : maximize the potential of every child, everywhere.

We’re building the world’s first AI teacher to close that gap : one that listens, speaks, adapts, and inspires, just like the best human educators.

Our first product, Read with Ello, is already helping tens of thousands of kids each week learn to read. It listens as they read aloud, offers support when they stumble, and generates magical, personalized stories using generative AI. It works—and kids love it.

Now, we’re scaling that success into something even bigger : a complete AI teacher for all children. We’re building a real-time learning platform—one that combines language, speech, and memory to power personalized, interactive education for kids worldwide. We’re moving fast : we ship weekly, test directly with kids and families, and push the boundaries of what AI can do in education.

With the resources of the world's top investors and the heart of a public benefit corporation, we’re here to revolutionize how children learn globally. We’re featured on TIME’s Best Inventions and Fortune’s Change the World, Ello is a small, mission-driven team taking on one of the most important challenges of our time : to democratize education.

Base pay range

$140,000.00 / yr - $190,000.00 / yr

About The Role

We’re building the world’s first fully agentic AI tutor for kids, and we’re looking for a full-stack designer who will work end-to-end across character & interaction design, illustrations, mobile UI / UX, brand, and web assets, owning ideas from sketch to playtest to polished handoff. An ideal candidate will be equally comfortable PM’ing their work and collaborating tightly with engineering, research, content, and leadership. You love a strong feedback culture, can clearly explain the “why” behind your decisions, and you’re excited about working in-person in San Francisco and attending playtests to see the impact of your work. Most importantly, you are excited about making an impact on early education at scale and have a clear reason for wanting to design for children.

A portfolio submission is required for the application. While competitive candidates will likely have a proven track record in producing polished, high-quality work with real-world product impact, we are very open to opportunistic submissions – we love to see beautiful work.

Responsibilities

Lead end-to-end design for new kid-facing product features and experiments : concept → storyboard → prototype → playtest → final assets and handoff.

Collaborate closely with cross-functional teams to create cohesive, user-centered designs that appeal to children

Produce production-ready Figma files and partner closely with engineering on implementation, QA, and polish

Work in a fast-paced, iterative design environment; rapidly prototype ideas, test them out, and refine or discard

Communicate design rationale and tradeoffs clearly; respond to design critiques with empathy and candor

Qualifications

Broad design expertise across a variety of mediums, including UI / UX, graphic design, and product design

Ability to drive the product creation process : organize work, set milestones, and deliver from concept to high-quality handoff

Demonstrated experience designing for children and families or a compelling reason you want to serve this audience

Demonstrated track record of innovation and creativity in contributing to the product development process

Strength in communication & feedback : clear storytelling, design rationale tied to user motivations and business impact; comfortable giving / receiving critiques

Proficiency in both low and high-fidelity prototyping, and comfort with fast iteration cycles

Mastery of Figma and standard design tools, attention to detail, and “pixel-perfect” execution

Experience thriving in a dynamic, fast-paced work environment and adapting to project changes on the fly

Nice to have

Previous experience with designing children’s products and an understanding of creating engaging visuals for young audiences.

Comfortable drawing in multiple mediums for ideation & iteration (e.g., line-drawing & vector art alike).

Hands-on experience creating character-centric experiences using illustration and basic animation / motion (e.g., game or interactive contexts)

We look for candidates who

Have something to teach us

Have immense attention to detail

Want to do work they are proud of to ship products they are proud of

Have an urge to make a real impact on child development at scale

Take initiative and full ownership of their work

Prefer open and direct communication grounded in empathy to beating around the bush

Exemplify integrity in their actions, decisions, and communication

Want to build meaningful relationships at work

Why join our team

Immerse yourself in a collaborative environment

Dive deep into the rapidly evolving world of educational AI products

Experience the joy of turning your designs into engaging and educational experiences for children worldwide

Work in tandem with curriculum experts, product teams, and the world’s best engineers to harness the full power of AI to reimagine education

About Ello

Ello is a public benefit corporation on a mission to maximize the potential of all children. We’re currently around 45 people, headquartered in San Francisco, with offices in São Paulo, Brazil; Nairobi, Kenya; and New York.

Our team has deep expertise in artificial intelligence, K-12 education, and child development across institutions such as Stanford, Berkeley, Google, Apple, and more. We were part of Y Combinator’s W20 batch and are funded by world-class investors including Goodwater Capital, Homebrew, Reed Hastings, Common Sense Growth, Ravensburger, Project A Ventures, Reach Capital, Khosla Ventures, WndrCo, Visible Ventures, and K9 Ventures.

We’re a small, collaborative team that takes each other’s voices very seriously. Because our mission is to support all children, it is crucial that our team reflects the communities in which we work; we place significant emphasis on ensuring diversity within our team and fostering inclusion in our culture.

We feel enormously privileged to be one of the few companies that has the opportunity to take a shot at truly revolutionizing education with AI at this inflection point in technology. We don’t take it for granted, so we work quite hard to turn that vision into reality with urgency. We want to create an environment in which we can all be our best selves, use our strengths to take Ello forward, and develop our skills. We want to have fun while working hard to do impactful things that we’re proud of – and we believe it’s possible to do both.

At Ello, we view diversity as a moral imperative and a competitive advantage. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, skin color, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, or disability status. If you need any accommodations throughout the interview process, please reach out to recruiting@ello.com.

Employment details

Seniority level : Mid-Senior level

Employment type : Full-time

Job function : Design, Art / Creative, and Information Technology

Industries : Education

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