Lead Technical Animator

ART

What We Do

Push your artistic talent to the limit on a team of world-class environment, character and concept artists who strive to innovate and inspire.

What You'll Do

Epic Games is searching for a Lead Technical Animator with a passion for expressive character movement to join our team. In this talented team of veteran and emerging artists, you’ll collaborate across teams and contribute directly to Fortnite and other initiatives as part of our collaboration with Disney. Joining this team means you’re motivated to seek solutions to problems and work with other disciplines to make positive changes to workflows, tools, and technologies that directly impact cosmetic assets and gameplay.

In this role, you will

• Work closely with technical animators, Leads, Directors, and Outsource Managers on the team to ensure assets are set up for success in the different stages of production
• Communicate and drive alignment around strategy for technical animation and adjacent cosmetics teams
• Work with production to schedule, prioritize, and delegate assets for the team, both internal and vendor
• Work closely with animators, modelers, and designers to ensure a smooth development pipeline that delivers high-quality assets
• Assisting with pipeline tools and working with engine and project leads on the continuous improvement of those engine tools
• Mentor rigging-focused technical animators
• Rigging characters, weapons, creatures, and vehicles
• Setting up assets in Unreal Engine 5; including control rigs, cloth, physics, and blueprints
• Maintain detailed documentation, video reference, and examples of art asset production, procedures, and engine requirements to support internal and external artists

What we're looking for

• Extensive experience rigging characters in Maya and/or Unreal Engine
• A portfolio demonstrating rigging for a range of characters, bipeds, and creatures, both body and faces
• Attention to aesthetic detail, especially with regard to character deformation and physics movement
• Familiarity with the Unreal Engine 5 art pipeline
• A positive individual with strong written communication and teamwork skills 
• Exceptional problem-solver
• Control Rig experience a plus
• Python programming is a plus
• You’re user-focused, passionate, solutions-focused, and innovative. These traits equal success at Epic and influence everything we do

This role is open to multiple locations across the US (including CA, NYC, & WA).

Pay Transparency Information

The expected annual base pay range(s) for this position are detailed below. Each base pay range is relevant only for individuals who are residents of or will be expected to work within the specified locale. Compensation varies based on a variety of factors, which include (but aren’t limited to) things such as skills and competencies, qualifications, knowledge, and experience. In addition to base pay, most employees are eligible to participate in Epic’s generous benefit plans and discretionary incentive programs (subject to the terms of those plans or programs).