Senior Animator, Unannounced Super Fun Video Game (Contract)

Our Team We're building a PvE co-op action game with a small, highly autonomous team. Each discipline is represented by a single owner. There is no large animation department, dedicated technical animation team, or production layer separating disciplines. The people who thrive here are comfortable making decisions, solving problems independently, and moving work forward without extensive process or oversight. We care more about demonstrated capability than years of experience, previous titles, or studio pedigree. Show us great animation work, shipped games, side projects, game jam projects, mods, tools you've built, pipelines you've improved, or anything else that demonstrates your ability to create and ship great experiences. Your Role Animation is the primary focus of this role. We're looking for someone who can create both expressive character performances and exceptional gameplay animation. Our characters need to feel compelling when viewed up close through facial expressions, acting, personality, and charm, while also feeling responsive, readable, and satisfying during gameplay. You'll own animation from rigging and implementation through final polish. Most of your time will be spent creating animation, but because of our team's size, you'll also be expected to identify technical challenges, improve workflows, and occasionally step outside traditional discipline boundaries when it helps the project move forward. This is a fully remote role. Much of the team's coordination happens asynchronously, so success requires clear written communication, proactive updates, and the ability to make progress without waiting for meetings or direction. The strongest candidates tend to be builders. They make games outside of work, participate in game jams, create mods, experiment with new tools, or otherwise demonstrate a habit of learning and creating beyond their day job. What You'll Do - Create high-quality character, gameplay, and combat animation. - Bring personality, appeal, emotion, and charm to characters through performance and facial animation. - Create responsive, readable, and satisfying gameplay animation that supports combat and player feedback. - Rig, skin, and prepare assets for animation. - Implement, iterate on, and polish animation directly in Unreal Engine. - Work closely with Design and Engineering to improve gameplay feel, responsiveness, readability, and player experience. - Coordinate with Character Art, Environment Art, and VFX to ensure assets integrate smoothly into the game. - Identify bottlenecks and improve workflows through tooling, automation, technical solutions, or process improvements. - Evaluate and leverage AI-assisted workflows when they meaningfully improve iteration speed, content creation, or production efficiency. - Occasionally collaborate with external art partners to review deliverables, communicate feedback, and maintain quality standards. - Own animation as a discipline from concept through final implementation. What You'll Need - A portfolio demonstrating exceptional animation work. - Demonstrated strength in both character performance animation and gameplay animation. - Strong understanding of character acting, facial expression, appeal, timing, and physicality. - Strong understanding of gameplay readability, responsiveness, combat feel, and player feedback. - Strong rigging skills. - Experience implementing animation content in Unreal Engine. - Comfort working directly in-engine to solve problems and iterate on content. - The ability to independently own a discipline and make forward progress with minimal oversight. - Strong written communication skills and comfort working in a fully remote, asynchronous - environment. - The ability to discuss technical and creative tradeoffs with designers, engineers, artists, and external partners. - Comfort learning unfamiliar tools, workflows, or disciplines when doing so benefits the project. - Comfort using AI-assisted tools as part of a modern game…