Senior Technical Animator - Unpublished R&D Product

About the Role

As a Senior Technical Artist (Technical Animation), you’ll define and maintain the systems that bring our characters and creatures to life, including complex animation state machines, layered interactions, and IK-driven behaviors in our upcoming MMO. Working at the intersection of animation, design, and engineering, you’ll build scalable animation graphs, ensure believable motion, and optimize performance across a vast, dynamic world. You’ll collaborate with animators, designers, and engineers to develop robust Unreal Engine animation systems that balance scalability, fidelity, and efficiency. As a key bridge between creative intent and technical execution, you’ll drive the evolution of our animation framework and ensure seamless, high-quality integration across the game.

Responsibilities

• Build and maintain complex animation state machines, layered animation systems, and override logic supporting split-body for player characters, NPCs, creatures, and props.
• Collaborate with animators, character tech artists, and designers to develop efficient, believable, and tech-friendly animation flows.
• Define best practices for animation setup while owning the debuggability, documentation, maintainability, and long-term health of animation blueprints and graphs within Unreal Engine.
• Partner with engineers to build and evolve animation runtime systems and debugging workflows.
• Drive optimization efforts across animation assets and graphs to meet performance and memory targets.
• Collaborate with cross-discipline partners to ensure character systems scale effectively across massive multiplayer environments.
• Develop scalable animation retargeting strategies to support characters and creatures of varying proportions while minimizing animation counts.

Requirements

• 8+ years of professional experience as a technical animator or technical artist in games or related industries.
• Deep expertise with Unreal Engine animation workflows, including complex Animation Blueprints, state machines, blend spaces, and layered animation systems.
• Proven experience designing scalable, reusable animation systems for large-scope character setups, including players, NPCs, and creatures.
• Strong art foundation with a deep understanding of animation principles, anatomy, and motion.
• Excellent communication skills and the ability to collaborate across art, design, and engineering disciplines.

Desired Qualifications

• Experience with Unreal Control Rig and Sequencer.
• Familiarity with C++ and/or Python within Unreal Engine.
• Expertise in Autodesk Maya for rigging and animation support.
• Experience working with software like Kawaii, Chaos, Havok.
• Prior experience supporting MMO or large-scale games with complex character ecosystems.
• Experience with runtime IK or motion warping.

Benefits

• Open paid time off policy and flexible work schedules.
• Medical, dental, and life insurance.
• Parental leave for you, your spouse/domestic partner, and children.
• 401k with company match.