Lead Technical Animator

Company Description

To create revolutionary, story-driven RPGs which go straight to the hearts of gamers — this is our mission. Want to dive deeper into our company’s culture? Explore our social media and check out our YouTube channel where we share behind-the-scenes insights and stories direct from our team members!

Job Description

CD PROJEKT RED is looking for a Lead Technical Animator to join our studio in Boston and work on Project Orion, the follow-up to Cyberpunk 2077. You will bring your years of expertise, leadership skills, attention to detail, and passion for creating animation pipelines and systems for characters, vehicles, and weapons to our growing team. 

Responsibilities

• Develop and manage a high performing Technical Art team comprising Rigging TD’s and Technical Animators. 
• Leverage your skillsets in both digital content creation tools and real-time engines to drive and deliver high-quality character, vehicle, and weapon workflows, pipelines, and animation solutions.
• Manage your direct reports and help them grow in their role and ambitions, including setting up 1:1s, performance management, hiring and promotions. 
• Work with Directors and Production to estimate and plan work.
• Collaborate closely with designers, artists and other developers to understand their needs and ensure that your team is aligned to deliver on expectations.
• Coordinate and drive cross-discipline functional teams from feature conception to completion. 
• Establish and maintain best practices offering guidance to support content development team artistic and technical objectives. 
• Mentor the technical art team, building an environment of creativity, trust, and excellence aligned with the company’s values and goals.

Pipeline

• Prototype, research, integrate, and extend rigging and animation systems.
• Help devise, develop, and maintain pipelines for asset creation focusing on characters, weapons, and vehicles.
• Solve complex technical art challenges while ensuring workflows and systems are efficient and scalable.
• Actively participate in evaluating performance and optimization to ensure seamless cross-team gameplay experiences.
• Foster cross-department collaboration to ensure the content and animation work effectively contributes across game teams and systems.

Qualifications

• Minimum 7+ years of experience in the video games industry, including at least one shipped AAA title through the entire production lifecycle.
• Experience leading a technical art team.
• Expertise in Unreal Engine 5 Rigging and Animation Systems.
• Animation pipeline knowledge including developing and scripting tools for Maya, MotionBuilder, or other DCC applications. 
• Proven track record of building character, vehicle, weapon workflows and pipelines.
• Excellent problem-solving, communication, and teamwork skills.
• Ability to think creatively and strategically to overcome technical challenges and drive innovation in technology.
• Demonstrated commitment to taking ownership, setting goals, exchanging knowledge and driving initiatives independently.

Nice to Haves:

(Please note that these skills are not required to apply for the position)

• Strong C++, C#, or Python tool development and scripting professional experience.
• Experience in animation performance/memory optimization.

Additional Information

Working mode

• Relocation to Warsaw is required.
• Office-First: working primarily from the Warsaw studio in a full time or hybrid mode.

Relocation support

• Relocation package – flight ticket, company apartment for your first month, relocating your pet, shipping your belongings: it’s all covered. 
• Relocation assistance — processing your legalization operations for you, assistance with finding residence, tax settlements - all you need to feel right at home is taken care of.
• Polish lessons for foreign employees — and for your spouse or partner, too.
• Paid Leave — from 20 to 26 days of holiday for every team member per year, paid sick leave, and paid maternity & paternity leave.

Perks & Professional Growth

• Flexible working hours — start your workday anytime between 8:00 and 10:00 AM.
• A welcome pack filled with goodies — to help you feel right at home once you join the team.
• Trainings, lectures and courses — internal workshops, external training for each employee, ‘Meet a star’ events, knowledge-sharing initiatives, online tutorials, and e-learning classes are all available. There’s always something to learn!
• Merch — gifts for newborn rebels and regular chances to nab some cool swag!

Health & Well-being

• Private medical healthcare — a selection of medical plans with dental care to choose from, which are also accessible for your partner and relatives.
• Psychological care — free mental health support and various well-being webinars. 
• Multisport card — gain access to a wide number of sporting and fitness facilities across the city.

Social Activities & Life in the Office

• Dog-friendly office — dog owner? Bring your pooch with you and look after them while working! There’s always a furry friend or two to meet at the studio.
• Social events — we host regular gatherings at the studio where we can all unwind, play games, and just have some fun together.
• Healthy selections — ​​organic fruit, snacks, muesli, organic honey, vegan milk, and speciality coffee are all at your disposal around the studio. Enjoy!
• Truly international working environment — a chance to meet and work with a diverse selection of people from all around the world.

Head office in Warsaw

• Sustainable campus with an eco ethos — solar panels provide green energy, 2000 plants and an air-filtering system to help provide clean air, electric car charging points, flower meadows, and more green features in the works.
• An onsite, well-equipped gym with a climbing wall, daily Gym Assistant support and yoga and healthy spine classes.
• Car and bike parking spaces.
• A designated space for your bicycle, as well as bicycle repair equipment and showers available whenever you need them.
• No dress-code — we like to keep it casual.

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