Lead Animator Technical Artist

Role Overview

As the Lead Animator Technical Artist, you will spearhead the technical research and development as well as foster quality enhancements of the runtime animation system for a dual-perspective shooting game. This entails comprehensive improvement of character movements, aiming mechanisms, weapon handling, combat states, and the overall shooting experience.

Core Responsibilities

• Conceptualize, test, and apply core solutions for aiming, weapon handling, procedural animation, animation graphs, and state orchestration.
• Diagnose and resolve animation quality issues spanning game assets, engine technology, gameplay mechanics, and runtime from both first-person and third-person standpoints.
• Define and govern the animation technical methodology for the project, including establishing technical specifications, review protocols, troubleshooting processes, and result verification systems.
• Promote stability through mass production and continual refinement of animation-related solutions within the project lifecycle.
• Collaborate closely with animation, programming, and game design teams to translate animation technical designs into executable development workflows and facilitate cross-team rollouts.
• Lead and mentor the animation technical artist team using a matrix management approach, set high technical standards, guide problem-solving efforts, foster skill development, and steadily build team capabilities with project delivery as a primary goal.

Required Qualifications

• Extensive background in game animation and animation technical artist research and development, especially within top-tier, realistic PvP shooter products.
• Prior experience contributing to runtime animation development on titles equivalent to Call of Duty PvP is strongly preferred.
• Strong comprehension of runtime feel and performance nuances specific to dual-perspective shooter games.
• Proven ability to independently conceive, develop, and deliver closed-loop R&D for core systems, such as aiming, weapon handling, procedural animation, animation graphs, and state orchestration.
• Experience across the complete game development pipeline with a track record of driving quality improvements in runtime animation from identifying issues to cross-team execution and live operations assessment.
• Demonstrated expertise in matrix-style technical leadership: setting animation standards, task decomposition, mentoring animation technical artists, and elevating team competency while maintaining project deadlines.
• Familiarity with the runtime animation structures of at least one mainstream or custom game engine, capable of tackling animation R&D challenges using Digital Content Creation tools, scripting, and toolchains; expertise in multiple engines is an advantage.
• Experience in high-quality action game development or international project collaboration; skilled at balancing quality, performance, and maintainability in multi-character, multi-state, high-concurrency multiplayer environments is preferred.
• Competence or interest in applying AI or agent technologies to animation data processing, assistive R&D, tool automation, problem analysis, or workflow enhancement is advantageous.