Senior Technical Animator: Unreal Melee Combat

Flix; United States; Hybrid; USD 93,000 - 120,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Private health and dental care

20 days A/L plus holidays

Team social events

Two company-wide parties a year

Employee Assistance Programme

Fully remote working (Europe)

Gamepass or PS Plus Subscription

Flexible core hours

Job summary

Flix is seeking a Senior Technical Animator to refine animation assets and implement robust animation systems in Unreal Engine. You will collaborate closely with the Lead Combat Designer to deliver responsive melee combat, informed by industry benchmarks and titles like Shadow of Mordor and God of War.

The role requires deep expertise in animation pipelines, motion matching, and toolsets such as IK, Control Rig, and retargeting. Remote-friendly arrangements are available for Europe-based work.

Qualifications

• 7 years of professional experience at a senior level in technical animation, or equivalent experience demonstrating independent ownership of complex character animation work.
• Demonstrable experience working on melee combat games, with a strong understanding of combat timing, anticipation, impact, recovery and transitions.
• Strong character animation skills, including the ability to assess and improve motion capture and existing animation data.
• Thorough practical understanding of Unreal Engine character and animation systems, including blueprints, state machines, blend spaces, animation montages, motion matching, pose search, motion warping, root motion, IK, Control Rig, and retargeting.
• Ability to move animation assets between content creation tools and Unreal Engine.
• Clear communication skills and confidence collaborating with design and other development disciplines in a distributed team.

Responsibilities

• Refine, edit and adapt existing animation assets, including motion capture, to meet gameplay and character performance.
• Implement and maintain character animation systems in Unreal Engine, including Animation Blueprints, state machines, blend spaces, and animation montages.
• Work with motion matching, motion warping, root motion, inverse kinematics (IK) and Control Rig to support responsive character movement and combat.
• Collaborate on attacks, combos, dodges, parries, hit reactions and transitions between locomotion and combat.
• Balance animation quality with gameplay responsiveness, focusing on timing, weight, spacing, readability and player control.
• Diagnose and resolve animation issues, including blending, foot sliding, alignment, retargeting and interruptions.
• Profile and optimise animation systems for performance and maintainability.
• Manage workload, communicate progress and risks, and propose solutions.

Skills

Senior-level animation

Unreal Engine

Melee combat animation

Animation systems

Collaboration

Tools

Blender

Maya

Job description

Flix is seeking a Senior Technical Animator to refine animation assets and implement robust animation systems in Unreal Engine. You will collaborate closely with the Lead Combat Designer to deliver responsive melee combat, informed by industry benchmarks and titles like Shadow of Mordor and God of War.

The role requires deep expertise in animation pipelines, motion matching, and toolsets such as IK, Control Rig, and retargeting. Remote-friendly arrangements are available for Europe-based work.