Senior Animation Programmer

Qualifications

• 5+ years of professional experience in games programming, with a strong focus on animation systems.
• Proven, shipped experience with Unreal Engine (UE4 and/or UE5), including Animation Blueprints, Control Rig, and the Skeletal Mesh pipeline.
• Strong proficiency in C++; solid understanding of Blueprint scripting for prototyping and tools.
• Deep understanding of animation fundamentals: blending, layering, additive animation, IK, root motion, and state machines.
• Experience optimizing animation performance and memory for real-time, multi-platform titles.
• Strong collaboration skills and experience working directly with animators and technical artists.
• Solid understanding of 3D math (quaternions, matrices, vectors) as applied to skeletal animation.
• Excellent debugging, profiling, and problem-solving skills.
• Experience with motion matching, procedural animation, or physics-based animation (e.g., ragdoll, active ragdoll).
• Experience with networked/replicated animation systems in multiplayer titles.
• Familiarity with animation compression techniques and custom animation runtime pipelines.
• Experience building custom in-engine tools or editor plugins for animation workflows.
• Background in engine-level or middleware animation system development.
• Experience with console platform certification requirements (PlayStation, Xbox, Switch).
• Prior experience mentoring or leading a small team of engineers.
• Strong problem-solving and analytical skills.
• Ability to balance visual quality and performance.
• Excellent communication and cross-disciplinary collaboration skills.
• Passion for high-quality visuals and technical innovation.
• Proactive ownership of features from concept to ship.