Senior Technical Animator

As a Senior Technical Animator at 2K Games, your primary responsibilities will include creating and maintaining complex rigs in Maya, automating pipelines for animation retargeting, and ensuring assets are optimized for run-time performance. You'll also troubleshoot animation issues and work closely with the team to continuously refine workflows and content authoring processes.

To be a strong candidate for the Senior Technical Animator role at 2K Games, you should have a good understanding of animation principles, knowledge of human anatomy, and experience with game engines such as Unreal or Unity. Additionally, proficiency in tools development using Python and experience creating animator-friendly rigs are essential.

At 2K Games, collaboration is key, especially for a Senior Technical Animator. You'll be expected to drive effective collaborative processes within your team, mentor fellow team members, and maintain ongoing communication to ensure that all aspects of animation and technical workflows are aligned with our creative vision.

Key skills for a Senior Technical Animator at 2K Games include a strong artistic eye, proficiency in Maya and Motion Builder, familiarity with optimizing assets for game engines, and excellent problem-solving capabilities. Additionally, experience with facial rigging and game engine workflows would be advantageous.

Absolutely! Mentoring is an integral part of the Senior Technical Animator position at 2K Games. You'll have the opportunity to guide other team members on tool usages and best practices while sharing your knowledge to help elevate the overall skill set of the team.

When answering this question, focus on specific projects where you've created rigs in Maya. Discuss the complexity of the rigs, the techniques you used, and how they contributed to the final animation quality. Highlight your understanding of animation principles and how you ensured the usability of your rigs for animators.

Share your strategies for asset optimization, including level of detail (LOD) techniques, reducing memory footprint, and frame-rate performance. Provide examples where you've successfully implemented these techniques on past projects and the impact they had on game performance.

In your response, detail specific examples where you've set up automated animation pipelines, emphasizing the tools and programming languages you used, such as Python. Discuss the benefits this automation provided in terms of efficiency and workflow improvements for your team.

Discuss how you've fostered a collaborative environment, including regular communication, feedback sessions, or joint problem-solving initiatives. Emphasize the importance of teamwork in achieving project goals and how your contributions facilitated a productive work environment.

Provide examples of tools you've created or improved, including details on the development process and the programming languages used. Explain how these tools enhanced the overall workflow for animators and contributed to project efficiency.

Share your methods for continuous learning, whether through online courses, industry conferences, or community forums. Mention specific technologies or trends you are excited about and how you plan to integrate them into your work as a Senior Technical Animator.

When telling this story, clearly outline the problem, your approach to diagnosing the issue, and the steps you took to find a solution. Highlight any collaboration with team members and the successful outcome, showcasing your problem-solving skills.

Discuss the specific facial rigging projects you've worked on, including your familiarity with FACS principles. Highlight any challenges you faced and how you addressed them, elaborating on the techniques that yielded strong results.

Outline your organizational skills, detailing methods you use to prioritize tasks effectively. Discuss how you set deadlines, manage expectations, and communicate with team members to ensure project timelines are met without compromising quality.

Share your personal motivations and experiences that fueled your passion for technical animation. Discuss what excites you about working in the gaming industry, the impact of your work on players, and your desire to innovate in this field.