Technical Animator (6-month Contract)

Blackbird Interactive is a creative-fueled, future-driven, independent game studio where the best talent in the industry can find long-term careers to help grow their abilities while working on a wide range of projects, which encompass world-class IPs as well as our own creations across multiple genres.

In 2022, we announced that our studio is implementing a four-day work week as well as supporting in-studio, remote within Canada, and hybrid work arrangements as permanent options to our employees.

Blackbird Interactive is seeking a passionate Technical Animator to join our team on an upcoming first-person narrative thriller.

Do you have a broad range of creative and technical experience setting up characters and animation in Unreal Engine 5? Are you skilled at working under a strong technical brief? If so, we’d love to hear from you!

At BBI, we’re a creative-fueled, future-driven, independent game studio where top industry talent can grow their careers while working on both world-class IPs and original creations across multiple genres.

We’re looking for a Technical Animator to help modernize our animation, rigging, and content workflows for this first-person Unreal 5 project. This role is ideal for someone passionate about tools, pipelines, and enabling teams to do their best work while working within performance and platform constraints.

You’ll join a fast-moving team developing the second installment of a new IP, with a focus on creating rigging systems, batch tooling, Maya automation, scratch animation, asset validation, and maintaining a clean and scalable animation/content pipeline.

We support both remote and hybrid working arrangements across Canada (Vancouver, BC). At BBI, you’ll find a flexible, forward-thinking environment where creative voices are valued and nurtured.

Please include a link to your showreel with your CV.

Responsibilities

• Develop and maintain Maya and Unreal-based pipelines and tools to support animation, rigging, and content export workflows
• Collaborate with animators and riggers to define modular rig standards (including facial morphs, attachments, decay systems, and variant support)
• Build, refactor, and modernize existing pipelines and tools
• Partner with engineers and designers to ensure pipeline output integrates cleanly into the game engine, supports gameplay systems, and meets performance targets

Requirements

• 4+ years of experience in technical art, technical animation, animation, or tools development for games
• Strong knowledge of rigging workflows
• Experience with, or demonstrable skill in, MetaHuman and Unreal Engine
• Familiarity with game-ready skeleton design, skinning, and animation scene structure
• Comfort working in Perforce-integrated pipelines and managing scene referencing/export workflows
• Basic animation skills (complemented by the animators on the project)
• Strong communication skills and a collaborative mindset

Bonus Points For

• Passion for games
• Passion for film and cinematography
• Experience manipulating Unreal camera rigs and setups