Associate Animation Director, Living World - Elsewhere Entertainment (Gaming)

Location: Santa Monica, United States

Base pay: $126,800–$234,580 annually, plus potential incentive compensation.

Company

hirify.global develops interactive entertainment and established gaming franchises, with Elsewhere Entertainment focused on a new intellectual property.

What you will do

• Define and drive the animation vision for living-world systems, ambient behaviors, environmental interactions, and authored vignettes.
• Lead cross-functional development with Design, Engineering, Art, Audio, and Narrative teams from concept through implementation and polish.
• Guide scalable animation systems supporting emergent gameplay, contextual behaviors, and dynamic world interactions.
• Review work in context, provide creative feedback, and resolve artistic, technical, and production challenges.
• Mentor animators and animation leads while improving workflows, tools, and production practices.
• Represent living-world animation in planning, milestone reviews, and cross-department decisions.

Requirements

• Extensive game-animation experience, including leadership on one or more shipped AAA titles.
• Experience leading multidisciplinary teams and influencing creative direction across departments.
• Understanding of animation, AI, gameplay systems, narrative, audio, and environmental storytelling.
• Experience with systemic content such as ambient behaviors, contextual interactions, crowds, social systems, or living-world features.
• Experience with game engines, animation systems, state machines, blending, procedural techniques, and implementation pipelines.
• Proficiency with Maya and familiarity with motion-capture and game-animation pipelines.

Culture & Benefits

• Medical, dental, vision, health savings or reimbursement accounts, and insurance programs.
• 401(k) with company match, tuition reimbursement, and charitable donation matching.
• Paid holidays and vacation, sick time, floating holidays, and parental and bereavement leave.
• Mental health, wellbeing, and fitness programs, along with free and discounted games.
• Relocation assistance may be available when the company requires a geographic move for the role.