Principal Technical Animator | Minecraft Blast, New games

King; Greater London; On-site; GBP 80,000 - 100,000; Full time

Job summary

A leading interactive entertainment company is looking for a Principal Technical Animator to shape character motion in Minecraft Blast. You’ll manage rigging and animation while collaborating with technical artists to enhance game experiences. Required skills include robust rigging knowledge, experience with Unity, and a technical mindset. The role offers opportunities for creativity and professional growth within a passionate team environment.

Benefits

Creative and inclusive work environment

Opportunities for technical and artistic growth

Qualifications

• Comprehensive knowledge of rigging and previous experience in rigging game characters.
• Experience with the Unity game engine and editor.
• Scripting experience with 3D software packages.

Responsibilities

• Ownership of the full rigging & animation asset pipeline.
• Creation of high-quality rigs for stylized animation.
• Configuring Unity animator state machines for animation.

Skills

Rigging knowledge

Animation systems

Unity game engine

C# scripting

Visual scripting systems

Problem solving

Tools

Blender

Maya

Houdini

Job description

Craft:

Art

Job Description:

As a Principal Technical Animator on Minecraft Blast, you will define how our characters and mobs move, react, and express emotion across both the Meta world and the Core puzzle gameplay. This role blends rigging, animation systems, and in-engine integration. You’ll help deliver clear, charming motion that fits our mobile-first style while empowering the animation team.

Key Responsibilities

• Ownership of the full rigging & animation asset pipeline.
• Creation of high quality rigs suiting the stylistic needs of the project's animators.
• Configuration of Unity animator state machines for procedural animation and dynamics.
• Support the use of timelines for keyframe animated narrative moments and cutscenes.
• Collaboration with the studio's technical artists to build tools, pipelines and processes that facilitate a deep connection between motion, audio and visual effects.
• Troubleshooting and proactive problem solving across the animation domain.

Required Skills & Experience:

• An inquisitive, technical mindset eager to work with a passionate team.
• Comprehensive knowledge of rigging and prior track record of rigging game characters.
• Knowledge of visual scripting systems and node graphs.
• Experience with the Unity game engine and editor.
• Scripting experience with 3d software packages such as Blender, Maya or Houdini.
• Game engine (C#) scripting experience.

Desirable Skills & Experience :

• Animation experience - willingness to jump in to help the animators during busy periods.
• Mentorship experience - Ability to guide and inform other animators and artists on rigging standards and animation workflows.
• Any experience developing key animation & control systems such as: Auto-riggers, SFX/VFX triggers, State machine logic, 2D Animation blend fields, Squash and stretch setups, IK/FK switches, Root motion, Navmesh and NPC behaviors.

What We Offer:

A creative and inclusive environment where thoughtful ideas are valued.

A chance to shape animation quality on Minecraft Blast, our new mobile take on the Minecraft universe.

The opportunity to shape the foundations of our studios animation pipeline and room to grow both technically and artistically.

About King

With a mission of Making the World Playful, King is a leading interactive entertainment company with more than 20 years of history of delivering some of the world’s most iconic games in the mobile gaming industry, including the world-famous Candy Crush franchise, as well as other mobile game hits such as Farm Heroes Saga. King games are played by more than 200 million monthly active users. King, part of Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT), has Kingsters in Stockholm, Malmö, London, Barcelona, Berlin, Dublin, San Francisco, New York, Los Angeles and Malta. More information can be found at King.com or by following us on LinkedIn, @lifeatking on Instagram, or @king_games on X.