[Hiring] Senior Generalist Animator @Keywords Studios

About MPG:

At The Multiplayer Group (MPG), we specialise in creating the highest standard of mind-blowing multiplayer experiences for our partners, through Co-Dev and Full-Dev projects.

Our people-first culture fosters a welcoming environment and a diverse team of talented people from across the globe.

We have a flexible approach to working that makes room for real life.

With our team spread far and wide, we're always looking for ways to bring our people together, whether that's online or in person.

Our giving back philosophy is centred around our local communities, education, and sustainability. We’re proud to say we’ve been Climate Positive since 2020!

Your mission:

We are actively recruiting a Senior level Generalist Animator with strong animation and technical animation skills to help MPG deliver the best possible animation support for our games.

You are a highly experienced generalist animator, with a great eye for detail, who is always striving to push their work to the highest possible level. You can be relied upon to consistently create exceptional quality content, happy to turn your hand to any new challenge, creative or technical.

What you'll be doing: 

• Creating high-quality keyframe responsive and stylised animation that supports gameplay
• Work with the Designers, and Engineers to integrate and maintain animation for games. 
• Help to develop and define the animation pipeline needs and improvements for a range of projects.
• Contribute to the conceptualisation of character behaviours and abilities.
• Create dynamic/performant rigs for characters, creatures, weapons, vehicles and props and maintain them throughout the production.
• Assist in developing a pipeline that achieves high visual quality and performance.
• Take part in animation reviews and processes, providing feedback on ideas and content.

Requirements

What we'll need from you:

• Have a high level of quality work, taking on constructive criticism where necessary
• Ability to support many stages of animation development, from pre-production to final.
• Expert knowledge of Maya or equivalent, with knowledge in rigging/skinning. 
• Strong creative and technical problem-solving skills. 
• Animation experience with a wide variety of characters, primarily humanoid, but quadruped, creatures and prop assets are a bonus.
• Should have an enthusiastic, can-do attitude, happy to accept animation and technical challenges.
• Have excellent communication and collaboration skills. able to interact with team members of different disciplines and solve creative problems.
• Experienced and knowledgeable when working with Unreal, with an understanding of implementation from design to engine.
• Knowledgeable in in-game optimization and performance, whilst understanding animation and gameplay intentions within projects.

What would help: 

• Experience creating tools for artists and animators using the moderate scripting languages MEL/ Python.
• Desire to work between animation and technical animation needs
• Experience in a similar role is desirable.

Benefits

• Flexible working: We were remote-friendly way before it was cool. We want to give you the flexibility you need to perform your best at work, and look after your home life too, so we have core hours that make room for real life.
• Support & wellbeing: From dedicated mental health first-aiders to therapy and coaching through our wellbeing partner, Myndup, private medical insurance and even a weekly exercise class live-streamed from the UK office - we provide the tools you need to stay happy and healthy.
• Pension and life cover: We've got your back with a solid pension plan that helps you level up your retirement savings effortlessly. Plus, our life insurance policy gives your family the ultimate protection boost.
• Time for you: Booking a holiday? We offer a minimum of 25 vacation days, as well as a paid break over the winter holiday. Plus there’s an additional 3 Volunteering Days per year for you to invest time in your local communities and causes that matter.
• Parental leave: Family comes first. We offer parental leave to support your journey as a parent or caregiver, giving you the flexibility to balance your professional and personal responsibilities.
• Levelling up: Whichever path you wish to take, there’s tonnes of ways to earn XP. Everyone at MPG has access to an annual L&D budget, allowing you to purchase the materials you need for learning in your spare time. There’s also a large hub of Expert Talks, Game Jams and exciting mentoring opportunities.
• Getting together: We're always looking for ways to bring people together. Every team member has a dedicated Entertainment Allowance for socialising with others at MPG. We also host regular chances to have fun as a team - online and in person - as well as monthly company-wide meetings, Expert Talks and Tea Times with Andy (our CEO!)

COMPANY PROFILE

Established in 1998 and floated on the London Stock Exchange’s AIM in 2013, Keywords(KWS) is the world’s leading provider of technical and creative services to the global video games market. Our 12,000 employees in 70+ Studios in 26 countries provide graphic art asset production, game development, audio, testing, localization and customer support services to most of the leading video game developers and publishers. We have a proven track record of organic and acquisition-led growth and have successfully acquired and integrated 50+ acquisitions since 2014.

People who work at Keywords are passionate, talented, committed and resourceful. As a business we thrive on diversity, celebrate uniqueness and work as teams whether we are physically together in one of our 70 global studios or working together virtually.

We empower people to perform to the best of their ability with our “can do” attitude. We appreciate and embrace flexibility. We learn at every opportunity to grow ourselves through experience, training and tackling new challenges.

This is what makes us Keywordians.

https://www.keywordsstudios.com/