Lead Technical Animator

Company Description

People Can Fly is one of the leading independent AAA game development studios. Our international team consists of hundreds of talented individuals working from offices in Poland, the UK, Ireland, the US, and Canada, as well as remotely across the globe.

Founded in 2002, we made our mark on the shooter genre with titles such as Painkiller, Bulletstorm, Gears of War: Judgment, and Outriders. As one of the most experienced Unreal Engine studios in the industry, we continue to expand on our expertise and push the boundaries of what’s possible in game development.

Our creative teams are currently working on several exciting titles: Gears of War: E-Day developed in collaboration with Microsoft; Project Echo for KRAFTON; and Lost Rift, an original IP we are developing in-house under our self-publishing model. We are also exploring new platforms and experiences with VR and other unannounced projects.

With over 20 years of experience, PCF continues to explore new horizons. We aim to combine our expertise with the creativity of the best and most forward-thinking talent in the industry, building the next generation of action games for players worldwide.

If you join us on this journey, you’ll have the chance to perfect your craft, expand your knowledge, and work alongside industry leaders to create unique, unforgettable experiences for gamers everywhere.

Job Description

Main goal of the role:

Develop and maintain rigging, pipelines and processes used by the animation team.

Duties:

• Assigns, delegates, and supports individuals in their tasks, monitoring and reviewing the progress of their work.
• Provides constructive feedback and clear communications to enhance behavior and performance, ensuring a continuous improvement approach. Takes responsibility for evaluating their direct reports during periodic performance reviews, providing valuable insights and assessments toward their career development.
• Fosters an engaging atmosphere within their team, as well as ensuring a healthy work life balance by setting clear expectations and scope of work, empowering individuals to propose solutions, and express their opinions. Utilizes data such as pulse checks and satisfaction scores.
• Collaborates and communicates effectively with other Leads, Directors, departments and project stakeholders on a continuous basis in order to notably build trust and work toward the project’s objectives and ambitions with an emphasis on Animators and modelers.
• Follows the Director’s guidance/vision and implements it. Contributes to the Director’s direction by providing important data, raising issues, seeking advice and relays them to relevant project leaders
• Setting the guidelines, standards and quality bar for technical animation.
• Building custom pipeline tools and working with engine and project leads on continuous improvement of those tools.
• Autonomously Implementing characters in Unreal Engine, including cloth, physics and blueprint setups.
• Providing R&D projects, pipeline and workflows improvements and proceeding with post mortems and its implementation.
• Alongside their team, help tackle the most technically difficult bugfixing efforts.
• Conduct recruitment projects with HR collaboration.
• Conduct onboarding to new hires.

Qualifications

Must have qualifications:

• Strong mentoring and leadership skills.
• Familiarity with Unreal engine art production pipelines including notably character/ animation related features.
• Expert knowledge of Maya, specializing in rigging/skinning.
• Expert understanding of anatomy and character movement.
• Excellent communication skills with the ability to clearly provide technical feedback into the tasks, rigs, toolsets and documentation.
• Experience in physics simulation on cloth, hair and other physics items.
• Experience with animation runTime systems.
• Knowledge of current and future technology and trends in video games.
• Knowledge of facial rigs for games, television or film.
• Proficiency with Atlassian software (JIRA, Confluence) or other softs as Shotgun/ FTrack.
• Good programming skills, ability to write Python code.

Software:

Maya, Unreal Engine, MotionBuilder, houdini, blender.

Experience:

• Typically 8+ years of experience including prior experience in any leadership capacity
• 2 years of managing
• 2AAA

Nice to have qualifications:

• Modeling and animation experience
• Familiarity with C++ programming

Additional Information

What we offer:

• Benefit package 100% paid by PCF. The insurance company reimburses 100% of claims (Up to $1000 per service a year, as well as individual family coverage).
• Full Dental coverage, including major dental.
• 4% RRSP matching before tax deductions, 100% vested on day 1.
• Paid week off during the Winter Holidays.
• 20 paid vacation days and 5 paid sick days.
• Free virtual health and mental well-being sessions are included in the plan for members and their dependents.
• Personal development opportunities and ability to work in a global environment.
• Work in a creative team with people full of passion for what they do.