Senior Technical Animator

Role overview Serve as a contract technical animator on a small-to-mid sized game studio team building atmospheric, narrative-driven horror experiences in Unreal Engine. The position bridges animation and engineering, owning rigs, runtime systems, pipelines, and tooling that keep characters and creatures performing at the level the franchise is known for.

Responsibilities - Develop and maintain animation systems, rigs, automated lip sync solutions, and runtime systems inside the game engine. - Build tools and pipelines that improve the efficiency and consistency of animation workflows. - Collaborate with animators to ensure rigs, skeletons, and animation assets perform optimally in-engine. - Partner with gameplay engineers to integrate animation features and systems into shipping content. - Optimize animation assets for performance, memory footprint, and runtime stability on target platforms. - Troubleshoot and resolve animation and rigging issues across the asset-to-engine pipeline. - Support motion capture integration, retargeting, and procedural animation systems where applicable. - Document best practices for animation pipelines and technical workflows, and mentor junior technical animators.

Requirements - Three or more years of technical animation and rigging experience within the video game industry. - Strong working knowledge of Unreal Engine, including Control Rig and its animation tooling. - Proficiency with Maya or comparable DCC tools, including rigging and scripting workflows. - Experience with animation state machines, blend trees, and runtime animation systems. - Solid understanding of character rigging, skinning, and deformation systems. - Scripting experience in Python, MEL, C++, or Blueprint for tool and pipeline development. - Strong debugging instincts and clear cross-discipline communication with art, design, and engineering teams.

Nice to have - Experience with motion capture pipelines and retargeting systems. - Knowledge of procedural animation with Control Rig, physics-based animation, or IK systems. - Background optimizing animation for console or PC performance constraints. - Credit on at least one AAA or mid-sized studio title. - Experience developing custom animation tools or plugins.

Benefits and work setup - Contract role; remote work supported. - Base salary benchmarks of $125,000 to $149,000 in high-cost metros, $100,000 to $130,000 in mid-cost metros, and $92,000 to $118,000 in other U.S. locations; profit sharing, medical, dental, and vision insurance, 401(k) matching, FSA/HSA, paid time off, sick time, holidays, and parental leave available to eligible U.S. full-time staff.