About the role
Company Overview
Mob Entertainment is a startup multimedia studio known for the hit indie horror game Poppy Playtime. The studio is a mid-sized game development team focused on crafting memorable, atmospheric, and emotionally impactful gameplay experiences. They specialize in immersive worlds where tension, storytelling, and player agency are central. The team develops primarily in Unreal Engine and utilizes Jira and Confluence for production discipline.
Role Overview
The Senior Technical Animator will bridge the gap between animation and engineering. The role involves designing and maintaining animation systems, developing tools and pipelines, and collaborating with animators, designers, and engineers to ensure high-quality character movement and performance in-game. The role requires defining animation workflows and technical standards while ensuring seamless integration of assets into the engine.
Key Responsibilities
- Develop and maintain animation systems, rigs, automated lip sync systems, and runtime solutions within the game engine.
- Build tools and pipelines that improve the efficiency of animation workflows.
- Collaborate with animators to ensure rigs, skeletons, and animation assets perform optimally in-game.
- Work with gameplay engineers to integrate animation features and systems.
- Optimize animation assets for performance, memory, and runtime stability.
- Troubleshoot and resolve animation and rigging issues across the pipeline.
- Support motion capture integration, retargeting, and procedural animation systems when needed.
- Establish and document best practices for animation pipelines and technical workflows.
- Mentor junior technical animators and support the broader animation team with technical challenges.
Qualifications
- 3+ years of experience in technical animation and rigging within the video game industry.
- Strong experience with Unreal Engine, specifically using control rig and animation inside the engine.
- Proficiency with Maya or similar DCC tools, including rigging and scripting workflows.
- Experience working with animation state machines, blend trees, and runtime animation systems.
- Understanding of character rigging, skinning, and deformation systems.
- Familiarity with Python, MEL, C++, or Blueprint scripting for tool and pipeline development.
- Strong problem-solving skills with the ability to debug complex animation issues.
- Excellent communication skills and experience working cross-discipline with art, design, and engineering teams.
Nice to Have
- Experience with motion capture pipelines and retargeting systems.
- Knowledge of rigging with unreal tooling, procedural animation with control rig, physics-based animation, or IK systems.
- Experience optimizing animation for console or PC performance constraints.
- Animation experience doing animations.
- Shipped at least one AAA or mid-sized studio game title.
- Experience developing animation tools or plugins.
Compensation
Final compensation is determined based on experience, qualifications, and work location.
- San Francisco, CA; New York City, NY; Los Angeles, CA; Seattle, WA; Boston, MA; & Washington, DC Metropolitan Areas: $125,000 - $149,000 USD annually.
- Austin, TX; Denver, CO; Nashville, TN; Atlanta, GA; Chicago, IL; Dallas, TX; & Miami, FL Metropolitan Areas: $100,000 - $130,000 USD annually.
- All Other U.S. Locations: $92,000 - $118,000 USD annually.
Benefits
Mob Entertainment offers the following benefits to eligible U.S.-based full-time employees:
- Profit sharing
- Medical, dental, and vision insurance
- 401(k) matching
- FSA/HSA
- Paid time off
- Sick time
- Holidays
- Parental leave
Equal Opportunity Employment
Mob Entertainment is an equal opportunity workplace and complies with all federal, state, and local laws prohibiting discrimination. The company is committed to providing equal opportunities to all applicants and employees regardless of race, color, national origin, religion, sexual orientation, gender, age, disability, military service, or any other protected class. Mob Entertainment considers all qualified applicants with criminal histories consistent with Fair Chance laws.