Senior / Lead Animation Programmer

Posted Dec 13

CI Games is looking for an experienced and creative individual to join our team as a Senior / Lead Animation Programmer. You’ll be joining the team on an ambitious and original open world survival game with a horror thematic. We’re putting a unique twist on the formula, both in mechanics and the environmental challenges we set for the player. Visual quality is paramount, so we’re building in Unreal Engine 5.

A career at CI Games is about being part of a team working on some of the most creatively rewarding and ambitious projects to be found in any entertainment medium. You would be welcomed to a dedicated and inclusive environment where you can learn and collaborate with some of the most talented people in the industry.

Key Responsibilities:

  • Develop large scale animation systems that are usable and extendable by other disciplines or sub-team members.
  • Work with the Gameplay and Animation teams to ensure cohesion between the groups and optimise the pipeline for animation content to get into game/engine in a timely manner.
  • Maintenance and optimization of systems to ensure they remain fit-for-purpose through introduction of new technologies and gaming hardware during development.
  • General Animation System strategies and patterns that can be adopted by the Engineering team as a whole.
  • R&D into new developments and technologies in areas such as Motion Matching, Control Rig, Optimizers and middleware (e.g. Maya/Motion-Builder/Unreal plugins, etc.), providing value propositions for their inclusion in our workflows.
  • Interface with other discipline members to understand their usage patterns and requirements for Animations within gameplay (requirements capture), and help provide clear roadmaps for the delivery of support systems across the projects you are involved in.
  • Guide and mentor other team members and help them to improve (e.g. code patterns, communication and methodology).
  • Task scheduling. helping to ensure that work is done in an order that does not create too much re-work & churn and in line with any downstream dependencies (consumers) of that work.
  • Systems reviews, providing input into architectures proposed for various systems that have an element of R&D and/or risk to performance (specifically for animation dependencies).
  • Performance assessment, evaluating the relative skills and weaknesses of more junior team members.

Key Requirements:

Must have

  • 5+ years experience in AA/AAA Games Studios
  • 2+ shipped titles as Animation Programmer
  • C++
  • Unreal 4/5 Experience
  • Character Animation Systems involving player mechanics such as Climb/Vault/Slide/Melee/Ranged combat, etc.
  • Animation blueprint and animation graph programming experience with modern techniques such as function binding, property accesses etc.
  • Knowledge on common warping techniques such as motion warping, distance matching, stride warping etc.
  • Knowledge on IK systems
  • Knowledge on optimization techniques for skeletal meshes and animation systems on Unreal Engine

Good to have

  • Motion Matching (or similar DB tech)
  • Motion Warping (or similar tech)
  • Hands-on experience with modular animation systems based on Control Rig
  • Experience with first person locomotion/camera systems
  • Knowledge on profiling animation thread and finding bottlenecks with Unreal Insights
  • Hands-on experience with Gameplay Ability System to create replicated animation systems
  • Basic knowledge on animation content pipelines

What we offer:

  • Attractive remuneration, holidays and social events. Our environments thrive with collaborative teamwork with people from all around the world, different nationalities, and languages.
  • A supportive community inclusive of LGBTQ+, and any age, ethnicity, religion, or disability. We care about the wellbeing of our employees and have a dedicated employee wellbeing programme.
  • Flexibility with our core hours, and no-notice holidays.
  • Annual discretionary studio bonus
  • Free games and merchandise
  • Wrap parties for game releases
  • Remote/Homeworking with flexible working schedules (core hours 10am - 4pm CET), a fun environment, and a relaxing culture, including the opportunity to work with the leading technology and creative minds in the world.
  • Learn as you work and be part of something real that changes the face of gaming - forever

Recruitment Process:

  • Once our Talent Acquisition team receives your application, together with the hiring team, we will review your CV, portfolio and the answers you provided in the application form and if all the boxes are ticked, we're moving to the next stage.
  • Initial call with Talent Acquisition Specialist - During this call you'll learn about the company and we learn about you. We'll talk about your experience & expectations with working in a fully remote environment and we'll talk about your expertise. We'll finish this call with some admin questions. There will be an opportunity for you to ask any questions as well.
  • After the initial call, usually 1 or 2 interviews with the hiring team follows. These interviews will be a bit more technical and will go deeper into your experience, skills & knowledge. As you would have signed an NDA by now, you'll also learn a bit more about the project you would work on. During these interviews we'll also focus on finding out whether you're a good fit for our company culture and that we share the same values.
  • We may or may not ask you to do the test - this is decided on an individual basis and you will receive instructions with the test.
  • If everything goes well, the last step in the recruitment process is the offer presentation call with the Talent Acquisition Specialist and your future line manager to discuss the offer and next steps to get you successfully on board.

We are an equal opportunities employer with a commitment to building a diverse workforce, representative of the world we live and game in!

Accessibility is at the heart of our games and we reflect that in how we operate as a business. Should you require adjustments or flexible arrangements to interview, or take up a role at with us, please let us know in your application and we will accommodate to the best of our ability.