Senior Technical Artist, Animation (Game Development)

TL;DR

Senior Technical Artist (Game Development): Defining and maintaining systems that bring characters and creatures to life, including complex animation state machines, layered interactions, and IK-driven behaviors in an upcoming MMO, with an accent on building scalable animation graphs and optimizing performance across a vast, dynamic world. Focus on collaborating with animators, designers, and engineers to develop robust Unreal Engine animation systems that balance scalability, fidelity, and efficiency.

Location: Los Angeles, USA

Salary: $185,200.00 – $258,000.00 USD

Company

Riot Games develops and publishes video games, driven by a mission to create games and experiences that prioritize players.

What you will do

• Build and maintain complex animation state machines, layered animation systems, and override logic for characters, NPCs, creatures, and props.
• Collaborate with animators, character tech artists, and designers to develop efficient, believable, and tech-friendly animation flows.
• Define best practices for animation setup while owning the debuggability, documentation, maintainability, and long-term health of animation blueprints and graphs within Unreal Engine.
• Partner with engineers to build and evolve animation runtime systems and debugging workflows.
• Drive optimization efforts across animation assets and graphs to meet performance and memory targets.
• Develop scalable animation retargeting strategies to support characters and creatures of varying proportions.

Requirements

• 5+ years of professional experience as a technical animator or technical artist in games or related industries.
• Deep expertise with Unreal Engine animation workflows, including complex Animation Blueprints, state machines, blend spaces, and layered animation systems.
• Proven experience designing scalable, reusable animation systems for large-scope character setups.
• Strong art foundation with a deep understanding of animation principles, anatomy, and motion.
• Excellent communication skills and the ability to collaborate across art, design, and engineering disciplines.

Nice to have

• Experience with Unreal Control Rig and Sequencer.
• Familiarity with C++ and/or Python within Unreal Engine.
• Expertise in Autodesk Maya for rigging and animation support.
• Experience working with software like Kawaii, Chaos, Havok.
• Prior experience supporting MMO or large-scale games with complex character ecosystems.
• Experience with runtime IK or motion warping.

Culture & Benefits

• Open paid time off policy and flexible work schedules.
• Medical, dental, vision, and life insurance.
• Parental leave for you, your spouse/domestic partner, and children.
• 401k with company match.
• Collaborative teams where unique perspectives are empowered.