{"id":149407,"url":"https://alion.io/job/2k-games-principal-technical-animator","title":"Principal Technical Animator","company":{"id":46865,"name":"2K","domain":"2k.com","url":"https://alion.io/company/2k-games","size_band":"1001-5000","is_staffing_agency":false,"employer_type":"direct","is_intermediary":false,"listed_via":null,"ats_vendor":"Greenhouse","truth_index":{"grade":"A","score":89,"open_postings":25,"ghost_share":0,"stale_share":0.24,"repost_share":0,"time_to_fill_p50_days":84,"computed_at":"2026-10-16T05:45:00Z"}},"role":"Games","role_family":"Games","seniority":"lead","employment_type":"full_time","work_mode":"on_site","remote_scope":null,"remote_scope_basis":null,"remote_working_hours":null,"hiring_geo_confidence":"structured","locations":["Brighton, United Kingdom"],"countries":["GB"],"hiring_countries":[],"hiring_countries_total":0,"salary":null,"salary_estimate":{"min_usd":58000,"max_usd":169000,"period":"year","method":"global_role_cell_scaled_by_country","sample_n":39},"experience_years_min":null,"visa_sponsorship":false,"relocation_package":false,"has_equity":false,"technologies":[{"name":"Machine Learning","optional":false},{"name":"Unreal Engine","optional":false},{"name":"C++","optional":true},{"name":"Core Animation","optional":true},{"name":"Houdini","optional":true},{"name":"Maya","optional":true},{"name":"Python","optional":true}],"status":"live","first_seen_at":"2026-06-05T09:28:42Z","employer_posted_date":"2026-09-29","last_verified_at":"2026-10-16T08:52:42Z","board_verified":true,"closed_at":null,"days_open":133,"trust":{"level":"ok","repost_count":0,"flags":[],"days_open":132},"description":"Job Title\n\nPrincipal Technical Animator (Gameplay)\n\nDepartment\n\nTechnical Art\n\nLocation(s) \n\nBrighton, Prague, Brno\n\nReports To \n\nAssociate Director Technical Animation\n\nJob Type (Permanent, fixed term, internship) \n\nPermanent\n\nJob Summary \nThe Principal Technical Animator (Gameplay) will help define the technical vision, architectural framework, and long-term strategy for character animation integration across the studio. In this highly influential role, you will champion innovation, driving the adoption of cutting-edge technologies to ensure our games achieve world-class animation quality and responsiveness. You will serve as a technical authority on gameplay animation, solving the studio’s complex R&D challenges while collaborating with design, animation and engineering to establish future-proof pipelines. While not a people manager, you will inspire, mentor, and elevate the technical capabilities of the entire animation department. \nDuties and Responsibilities \nArchitect and oversee the high-level design of gameplay animation systems, ensuring scalability, performance, and seamless integration across complex real-time systems.\n Drive R&D initiatives to evaluate and implement cutting-edge animation technologies (e.g., advanced Motion Matching, machine learning/AI animation, next-gen physics).\nPartner with Engineering and Tech Animation leadership to implement project-wide animation roadmaps and toolsets. \nSolve deep, complex runtime bugs and drive animation optimisation efforts to meet strict performance and memory budgets.\nDefine and document technical standards, best practices, and pipeline workflows for the wider technical animation team.\n Collaborate closely with Design and Animation leads to heavily iterate on and perfect 3C mechanics (character, camera, controls), maximizing game feel.\nActively mentor and upskill senior and mid-level technical animators through code/blueprint reviews and hands-on guidance.\nEssential Skills, Attributes and Experience\nExtensive proven experience architecting and integrating gameplay animation systems for AAA titles using Unreal Engine.\n Master-level expertise in Unreal Engine’s animation suite (Anim Blueprints, Motion Matching, Control Rig, State Machines, and Sequencer).\nDeep technical understanding of low-level animation concepts, including runtime optimisation, memory management, and threading for animation.\nExceptional cross-discipline communication skills, with a proven track record of aligning Art, Design, and Engineering directors on complex technical visions.\nExpertise in feature breakdown and scoping, with the ability to translate abstract creative pillars into robust, production-ready plans..\nA profound understanding of gameplay mechanics, game feel, and the mathematical principles behind smooth character movement and physics.\nA portfolio or reel demonstrating a history of solving highly complex, innovative technical animation challenges in shipped titles.\nHighly Desirable \nStrong proficiency in C++ for extending Unreal Engine’s animation system, alongside Python for pipeline tool automation.\nExperience contributing to proprietary engine tools or custom modifications to Unreal's core animation code.\nProduction experience with advanced DCC tools, including Maya API, MotionBuilder, or Houdini for runtime or pipeline integration.\n Background in traditional animation or motion capture data manipulation to better bridge the gap between art and code.\nHangar 13 prides itself on the diversity of its team members, partners, and communities. For this reason, we remain committed to providing equal employment opportunity in all aspects of the employment relationship, from recruitment and hiring through compensation, benefits, discipline and termination. \nAs an equal opportunity employer, we are also committed to ensuring that qualified individuals with disabilities are provided reasonable accommodation(s) to participate in the job application and/or interview process, to perform their essential job functions, and to receive other benefits and privileges of employment. Please contact us if you need to request reasonable accommodation.\nSECURITY NOTICE - We have recently been made aware of increasing occurrences of bad actors posing as company HR personnel to gain information from \"potential candidates\", in the form of job interviews and offers. These scams can be quite sophisticated and appear legitimate.\nPlease know that Hangar 13 and 2K never use instant messaging apps to contact prospective employees or to conduct interviews.\nIf you believe you have been a victim of such a scam, you may fill out a complaint form at https://complaint.ic3.gov/ and https://reportfraud.ftc.gov/ detailing as much as possible. We are taking these matters very seriously and apologize for any inconvenience.","description_format":"text","description_chars":4811,"description_truncated":false,"requirements":{"experience_years_min":null,"management_years_min":null,"team_size_min":null,"manages_managers":false,"education":null,"security_clearance":false,"languages":[]},"benefits":[],"hiring_locations":[],"hiring_excludes":[],"relocation_offered":false,"industries":["Console Games","PC Games","Game Development"],"lifecycle":[{"event":"open","at":"2026-06-05T09:28:42Z"}],"visa":[],"liveness":{"score":25,"band":"fade","label":"Fading","p_open":1,"p_active":0.681,"p_room":0.36,"age_days":132,"expected_fill_days":84,"reasons":["conf:1","velocity","win:tail","crowd:brand"],"computed_at":"2026-10-16T05:45:00Z"},"pay":null,"html_url":"https://alion.io/job/2k-games-principal-technical-animator","json_url":"https://alion.io/job/2k-games-principal-technical-animator.json","meta":{"generated_at":"2026-10-16T10:43:52Z","cache_seconds":300,"methodology":"https://alion.io/methodology","terms":"https://alion.io/terms","contact":"https://alion.io/contact","api":"https://alion.io/developers","about":"Alion is a live layer of people, companies and AI agents: who they are, whether they are real and active right now, what they do and how to work with them, readable by people and by agents and paid per call.","catalog":"https://alion.io/catalog.json","usage":{"tier":"crawler_verified","counted_by":"address","units_charged":1,"used_today":9280,"day_limit":null,"remaining_today":null,"minute_limit":300,"resets_at":"2026-10-17T00:00:00Z"}},"offers":[{"id":"company.slices","title":"One company in depth, by slice","status":"live","price":{"credits":0.02,"usd":0.002,"plus_per_slice":{"credits":0.05,"usd":0.005}},"unit":"per company, plus each slice with data","note":"the employer in depth","call":{"mcp_tool":"get_company","arguments":{"id":46865},"rest":"https://alion.io/mcp/rest/get_company?id=46865"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.slices&for=job%2F2k-games-principal-technical-animator"},{"id":"market.stats","title":"A market slice: pay, demand and time to fill","status":"live","price":{"credits":1,"usd":0.1},"unit":"per slice","note":"pay, demand and time to fill for this role and place","call":{"mcp_tool":"market_stats"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=market.stats&for=job%2F2k-games-principal-technical-animator"},{"id":"job.search","title":"Open jobs by role, technology, place, pay and visa","status":"live","price":{"credits":0.02,"usd":0.002},"unit":"per posting in a list","note":"similar open postings","call":{"mcp_tool":"search_jobs"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=job.search&for=job%2F2k-games-principal-technical-animator"},{"id":"company.verify","title":"Is this company real and active right now","status":"pilot","price":null,"unit":"per company","request":{"url":"https://alion.io/catalog/request","method":"POST","body":"{\"offer\": \"company.verify\", \"for\": \"job/2k-games-principal-technical-animator\", \"note\": \"what you need it for\"}"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.verify&for=job%2F2k-games-principal-technical-animator"}]}