Lead Animator — Remote (Unreal 5 & Blender)

Snail Games; Beverly Hills (CA); Remote; USD 100,000 - 150,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Work-life balance

Paid company holidays, vacation, and s

Medical, dental, vision, and Life/LTD

401k with company match

Job summary

Snail Games USA is seeking an Animator to join our Central Art team. You will create expressive, high-quality character and creature animations for fantasy and sci‑fi projects, working with our Senior Technical Animator to set and uphold standards across teams in Unreal Engine 5 and Blender.

This role combines artistic instinct with technical fluency, balancing hands‑on animation, reviews, and mentorship while ensuring animations integrate smoothly into gameplay and meet visual and technical

Qualifications

• Strong animation fundamentals demonstrated in a game portfolio.
• Experience leading animation work, mentoring artists, or owning animation quality.
• Proficiency with Blender and Unreal Engine 5 for keyframe animation.
• Ability to translate direction into actionable feedback and targets.

Responsibilities

• Lead animation quality and execution across multiple projects, aligning with each project’s creative direction and gameplay needs.
• Create polished keyframe animations for human, creature, and alien characters using Blender and Unreal Engine 5.
• Define and maintain animation standards, style guides, review criteria, and best practices in partnership with the Senior Technical Animator.
• Lead animation reviews, providing actionable written feedback, video critiques, and demonstrations to internal teams and overseas partners.
• Mentor animators in performance, body mechanics, timing, and animation polish.
• Collaborate with production and project leads to scope animation work, prioritize deliverables, identify risks, and support achievable schedules.
• Partner with art, design, and technical teams to ensure animations integrate smoothly into gameplay systems and meet visual and technical requirements.
• Maintain stylistic consistency within each project while supporting a range of realistic and stylized animation approaches.
• Keep animation tasks, review notes, references, and approvals organized in Jira.

Skills

Animation fundamentals

Video game animation experience

Blender

Unreal Engine 5

Character/creature animation

Mentoring artists / leadership

Team collaboration

Remote collaboration

Tools

Blender

Unreal Engine 5

Job description

Snail Games USA is seeking an Animator to join our Central Art team. You will create expressive, high-quality character and creature animations for fantasy and sci‑fi projects, working with our Senior Technical Animator to set and uphold standards across teams in Unreal Engine 5 and Blender.

This role combines artistic instinct with technical fluency, balancing hands‑on animation, reviews, and mentorship while ensuring animations integrate smoothly into gameplay and meet visual and technical