Technical Animator

Welcome to Striking Distance Studios!

Driven by people. Inspired by challenges. Relentless to deliver creative excellence.

At the intersection of art, design and technology lies Striking Distance Studios. We are a AAA development studio within the San Ramon Hills of the San Francisco Bay Area. With the release of our first title, The Callisto Protocol, we are excited to continue to grow our studio.

Here at Striking Distance Studios it is amazing people, an immersive experience and a passion for excellence that drives us each day. We are looking for people who push themselves creatively and learn with every new challenge. We give you the setting and the opportunity to do work you are proud of. We’re looking for the best to come join us and become part of a world-class team.

To us excellence is not a skill, but an attitude!

What we are looking for:

Striking Distance Studios is looking for a Technical Animator to work in a cooperative, cross-disciplinary team environment to push the boundaries of animation technology. You'll be on the forefront of our animation projects, bridging the gap between design and execution. 

Responsibilities:

• Collaborate with Animation, Design and Engineering to build out blueprints
• Work closely with Animation and enable them to iterate within, and fine tune, animation blueprints
• Work closely with engineers to meet the needs of our animation blueprints and insure they are performant
• Contribute to the design, implementation, feedback and maintenance of the animation and rigging pipelines.  Develop scripts to expand upon and support these pipelines.
• Help support technical issues for animators in Maya or Unreal
• Develop and optimize rigs for characters, weapons, vehicles, and props
• Create physics assets for ragdoll simulations
• Create and maintain documentation necessary for animation and other departments to understand the functions involved in blueprints or other Unreal assets.
• Maintain consistent communication with the animation team, welcoming feedback and refining animation blueprints, rigs or tools as necessary 
• Evaluate existing content and systems against future needs of the project

Qualifications:

• 3+ years of experience as a Technical Animator in the gaming industry
• Expertise with UE4/UE5
• Strong proficiency in Maya
• Experience owning features/leading systems from start to finish while driving animation implementation
• Experience with Computer Programming (Python, C#, C++, ) and familiarity with Qt/PySide
• In-depth understanding of character skinning techniques, weight painting, and deformations
• Practical knowledge of Motion Capture data pipelines and workflows
• Hands-on experience with version control systems like Perforce, Git, or SV
• Strong communication, collaboration, and problem-solving abilities

In California, the expected salary range for this position is $110,000-$140,000. The listed expected salary range represents a good faith estimate and the actual pay may depend on a variety of job-related factors that can include experience, education, skills, and location.

Striking Distance Studios provides equal employment opportunities to all employees and applicants for employment and prohibits discrimination and harassment of any type without regard to race, color, religion, age, sex, national origin, disability status, genetics, protected veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, or any other characteristic protected by federal, state or local laws.This policy applies to all terms and conditions of employment, including recruiting, hiring, placement, promotion, termination, layoff, recall, transfer, leaves of absence, compensation and training.

Due to recent scams, our recruiters will only reach out to you via @sds.com, @krafton.com or @pubg.com. If you received an email and are unsure you can always email [email protected].