I was originally hired as a character animator at Mango Languages to work on a very ambitious language learning project featuring a large cast characters.  I was the first animator hired to the team and eventually went up in the ranks to become the Animation Director, connecting the teams developing the stories and storyboards, overseeing the animators and modelers and refining the pipeline that ran between everyone.  Unfortunately the project was cancelled before it was launched, but I learned a TON during it - including the ins and outs of Autodesk's Maya.