Senior Technical Animator – The Cycle: Frontier (f/m/d)

#TEAMYAGER

YAGER makes computer games and is based in Berlin, Germany. Founded in 1999 by 5 enthusiastic gamers, we combine long-term experience with a resilient and innovative spirit.

We are passionate about creating online action games with rich worlds, focused on social emergent gameplay. Our mission is to give players unique moments they can’t wait to tell their friends about.

ABOUT THE ROLE
We are looking for a talented and experienced Technical Animator to come join our team and develop amazing games with us. We’re looking for talented professionals who love working in interdisciplinary teams in a fast-paced and creative environment.

The technical animator’s primary mission is to rig characters, solve technical production issues, streamline processes and develop tools and frameworks for character animation.

YOUR MISSION

• Improve the character animation pipeline and tools
• Work together with character art and animation as well as design and engineering to ensure good in-game results
• Troubleshoot and solve technical production issues
• Research and integrate new technology and define the technical direction of game development
• Work closely with other disciplines in small interdisciplinary teams in order to achieve features that are more than the sum of its parts
• Estimate high level goals and provide solutions to high level problems in planning
• Take a big part in review cycles, both in providing feedback for coworkers and improving based on feedback from team members
• Mentor and spread knowledge to other team members

YOUR SKILL TREE

• 5+ years of gaming production experience
• Understanding of game engines, tools, pipelines, development processes
• Professional experience with Unreal Engine or comparable game engine
• Ability to create character/creature rigs that enable the production of great animations
• Strong knowledge of one or more major 3D packages, Maya preferred
• Experience working with MEL (Maya), Python (Maya, Motion Builder) and C++
• Ability to handle and prioritize multiple tasks, meet deadlines and excel under production conditions
• Good communication skills across multiple disciplines; ability and willingness to accept and follow direction, and to work collaboratively; excel as a team player
• Enthusiasm to learn and grow professionally
• Passionate about videogames

Bonus points

• Experience with Motion Capture Data
• Professional experience with 1st person rigging
• Professional experience with creature rigging
• Good knowledge of the Unreal Engine, Animation Blueprints in particular
• Experience with animation trees and state machines in general
• Experience with node based scripting
• Experience with Control Rig in Unreal Engine

READY FOR THE QUEST?
We support you all the way

• Get settled. We offer relocation packages and budgets, provide temporary accommodation, administrative support and more.
• We care about your work-life-balance with competitive vacation days and core working hours
• Green travel at a discount. We offer a Company Ticket for the public transportation system in Berlin (BVG)
• We´re dog friendly! Bring your best buddy to the office and make new friends.

We are passionate about growth

• Join a diverse & creative team! Over 28 nationalities come together to create thrilling gaming experiences.
• We´re dedicated to see you grow. Receive feedback, internal trainings, workshops and Lunch & Learns and more!

We care about your well-being

• (Mental) health matters. We work with various partners to provide you and your loved ones with support for mental & physical health, coaching and counselling and more!
• Stay fit! We offer a gym membership for FitX gyms around Berlin. The best thing about it? There´s one just a ten-minute walk from the office!
• Yum! Our equipped kitchen is stocked with beverages and fresh fruits and we hold regular team events

OUR COMMITMENT TO DIVERSITY
At YAGER we believe that the best gameplay stories are those shaped by other players. We know together is better and we celebrate the uniqueness and strength found in diversity. We know that an aligned and diverse team will outperform the sum of its parts.

We are committed to creating a safe working environment where a diverse mix of talented people come together to make great games for everyone and to increase diversity and inclusion in the game development industry.

Every hero has a backstory, and we welcome you to share yours with us, and become part of an inclusive team working on creating exhilarating and engaging socially emergent action games.