Lead Animator (Contract)

Full-Time Contract Remote Position

OBJECTIVES OF THIS ROLE

We are in the process of staffing up our development team with outstanding talent to tackle a brand new sci-fi remake project using Unreal Engine 5. This is an excellent opportunity for someone who is tired of being a cog in a bigger machine, but would rather be responsible for defining animation direction and authoring critical player-facing animations and cinematic sequences while working with a lean team.

With the goal of capturing and preserving the essence of the games that we all grew up with, we welcome applicants with unique skillsets and backgrounds. If you are passionate about making a meaningful contribution to some of the most significant games in the industry, we'd love to hear from you!

REPORT STRUCTURE

• This role reports directly to the Lead Artist and works closely with the Project Lead and Producer and other team leads to plan project roadmaps and outline tasks.
• This role will directly manage a small animation group, which includes one animator and one technical animator.
• This role is responsible for liaising with Design, Engineering, Animation, Audio, and QA to integrate features smoothly across disciplines and to fulfill the shared vision of the project.

ESSENTIAL DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES:

• Own the animation vision and direction for the project, ensuring consistency of animation style, weight, and responsiveness across all characters.
• Define animation principles, style guides, and quality benchmarks for player characters, enemies, and interactive elements.
• Lead the implementation of animation systems in-engine, including state machines, blend trees, animation graphs, IK, root motion, and procedural techniques.
• Make final creative decisions related to animation, balancing expressive motion with gameplay clarity and technical constraints.
• Review animation work from team members, providing clear, actionable feedback.
• Create high quality, player-critical animations for locomotion, combat, traversal, and interaction, in both first-person and third-person as applicable.
• Collaborate with artists to storyboard all cutscenes and cinematic sequences and animate the necessary characters to effectively convey critical story beats.
• Work closely with Design to ensure animation supports gameplay intent, timing, and player feedback.
• Partner closely with Engineering and Technical Design to develop scalable, maintainable animation systems and troubleshoot animation-related issues such as blending artifacts, deformation problems, timing issues, and performance concerns.
• Manage and mentor an Animator and Technical Animator, providing guidance, feedback, and growth opportunities.
• Coordinate animation priorities with Production, ensuring work is scoped, scheduled, and aligned with project milestones.
• Serve as the primary animation contact for Design, Engineering, Art, and QA.
• Be highly collaborative with other team members and willing to provide timely and constructive criticism to submissions from colleagues.
• Respond well to feedback and constructive criticism to their submissions and workflows and be willing to quickly iterate on assets and systems.
• Be self-motivated and highly adaptable to new workflows and processes while willing to learn new skills and insert into gaps within the team structure. We are looking for that "Indie dev" mindset.

PREFERRED QUALIFICATIONS

• Ego-free, highly motivated, action-oriented, curious learn-it-all with a growth mindset.
• Comfort operating in ambiguous and unregimented environments.
• Expert-level experience animating in Maya or Blender for games, with a strong grasp of character movement, timing, weight, and expressiveness.
• Deep understanding of technical animation systems, including state machines, blend trees, IK, animation layers, rigging fundamentals, skinning and deformation, and runtime constraints.
• Proven experience implementing and debugging animation systems in a game engine (Unreal, Unity, proprietary).
• Strong leadership and communication skills, with experience mentoring or leading other animators.
• Ability to balance creative ambition with technical feasibility and performance needs.
• Experience with first-person animation or immersive sim–style player movement.
• Shipped at least one AA+ title
• Likes Sci-Fi and Horror media.