Contract Technical Cinematic Designer (Unreal Engine)

Location: Fully remote within the United States

Salary: $29–$50 per hour, depending on location, experience, qualifications, and other factors.

Company

hirify.global presents the opportunity on behalf of a partner game development company that manages applications and subsequent hiring steps.

What you will do

• Design, implement, iterate, and polish real-time cinematic sequences using Unreal Engine, Sequencer, and Level Sequences.
• Build interactive narrative systems with dialogue triggers, branching sequences, character states, and cinematic logic.
• Develop Blueprints, tools, workflows, and pipelines that improve cinematic production efficiency and scalability.
• Collaborate with writers, animators, gameplay and level designers, VFX artists, engineers, and audio specialists.
• Troubleshoot and optimize cinematic content for performance, stability, reliability, and platform requirements.
• Provide technical guidance, documentation, mentorship, and improvements to cinematic production standards.

Requirements

• At least 3 years of professional experience in cinematic design, narrative design, or a related game development discipline.
• Expert proficiency with Unreal Engine, especially Sequencer and Level Sequences.
• Strong understanding of real-time narrative systems, scripting, event triggers, branching logic, character states, and state machines.
• Experience creating polished cinematic sequences in a game engine, with knowledge of composition, camera direction, pacing, transitions, and storytelling.
• Practical experience with Blueprints or scripting for cinematic logic, automation, and custom tools, plus strong troubleshooting and optimization skills.
• A portfolio or demo reel demonstrating cinematic work created in Unreal Engine, along with strong written and verbal communication skills.

Nice to have

• Experience with performance capture workflows and facial animation systems.
• Experience setting up scenes and exporting animations from Maya.
• Familiarity with Perforce or Git.
• Experience on AAA or high-quality indie projects.

Culture & Benefits

• Contract flexibility with location-based hourly compensation.
• Remote work from within the United States.
• Cross-functional collaboration across creative and technical game development disciplines.
• Opportunities to deepen expertise in Unreal Engine, real-time cinematics, narrative systems, tools, and pipelines.
• Mentorship, documentation, and knowledge-sharing contributions.
• Inclusive workplace with equal employment opportunity.

Hiring process

• Applications are reviewed through hirify.global's AI-powered matching process.
• Shortlisted candidates are shared with the hiring company, which manages interviews, assessments, and final decisions.