Senior Technical Animator

Who We Are Founded in 2023, Small Axe Studios is 2K’s newest stand-alone studio, built to push the boundaries of game development and bring 2K’s next groundbreaking sports franchise to life. Headquartered in Burnaby, we are assembling a world-class team of visionaries, builders, and passionate gamers who thrive on creative collaboration, technical excellence, and bold ideas. At Small Axe Studios, we believe big things start with sharp focus—and we’re crafting an exceptional, player-first experience from the ground up. If you’re ready to tackle unique challenges, leave your mark on a brand-new IP, and help shape the future of interactive sports entertainment, we want you on our team!

What We Need As a Senior Technical Animator at 2K Sports Lab, you will help bridge the gap between our engineering, animation and art teams through technical precision, anatomical insight, and creative problem-solving. This role requires proven experience and artistic versatility to handle a variety of technical animation challenges. You’ll help shape the character rigging pipeline, build high-quality body and facial rigs with clean skinning for both gameplay and cinematics, and ensure they integrate seamlessly into Unreal Engine.

What You Will Do

• Design, create, maintain and optimize character body and facial rigs for gameplay and cinematic assets.
• Define and implement asset binding and skinning pipeline to support the Character Art and Animation teams.
• Collaborate with animators to ensure rigs meet animation quality and usability needs.
• Build and maintain body and facial rigging pipelines and tools, including FACS-based facial systems.
• Build and maintain animation mocap processing pipelines and animation databases.
• Work with engineering to ensure character assets function efficiently in runtime environments.

Who We Think Will Be A Great Fit

• 6+ years of experience as a Technical Animator or Rigging TD, in games or related industries.
• Strong knowledge of rigging and skinning for both body and facial systems.
• Solid understanding of human anatomy, deformation, and animation principles.
• Proficiency in Maya and MotionBuilder.
• Strong scripting ability in Python (C++ is a plus).
• Proven experience integrating character rigs into Unreal Engine.
• Familiarity with Control Rig, Metahuman, and Unreal animation systems.

Beneficial Qualifications

• Experience in character simulation (cloth, muscle, hair).
• Familiarity with motion capture pipelines
• Experience developing rigging tools or facial solvers for real-time performance.
• Experience with Cloth rigging and simulation

As an equal opportunity employer, we are committed to ensuring that qualified individuals with disabilities are provided reasonable accommodation to participate in the job application or interview process, to perform their essential job functions, and to receive other benefits and privileges of employment. Please contact us if you need reasonable accommodation.

The pay range for this position in British Columbia at the start of employment is expected to be between CAD $99,800 and CAD $147,680per Year. However, base pay offered is based on market location, and may vary further depending on individualized factors for job candidates, such as job-related knowledge, skills, experience, and other objective business considerations. Subject to those same considerations, the total compensation package for employees in regular roles may also include other elements, including a bonus and/or equity awards, in addition to a full range of medical, financial, and/or other benefits, provided that temporary or intern roles will not be eligible for many of these payments or benefits. Details of participation in compensation and benefit plans (if applicable) will be provided if an employee receives an offer of employment.

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