Animation Director

Electronic Arts•Orlando, FL

3d•Hybrid

About The Position

Electronic Arts creates next-level entertainment experiences that inspire players and fans around the world. Here, everyone is part of the story. Part of a community that connects across the globe. A place where creativity thrives, new perspectives are invited, and ideas matter. A team where everyone makes play happen. EA SPORTS is one of the leading sports entertainment brands in the world, with top-selling videogame franchises, award-winning interactive technology, fan programs, and cross-platform digital experiences. EA SPORTS creates connected experiences that ignite the emotion of sport through industry-leading sports video games, including Madden NFL football, EA SPORTS College Football, EA SPORTS FC, EA SPORTS NHL hockey, and EA SPORTS UFC. We are seeking an experienced and visionary Animation Director to lead our animation team and drive the animation direction for our games. In this role, you will be responsible for setting the animation vision, defining the style and quality bar, and ensuring the seamless integration of animation into compelling player experiences.

Requirements

A great eye for style, performance, and quality, combined with strong technical understanding.
Passion for innovation and continuous improvement.
5+ years as a senior animation contributor or leader, including experience directing animation on high-quality AAA games.
Strong leadership, people-management, communication, and mentoring skills.
Ability to inspire and lead a team to deliver high-quality work on time and within budget.
Skill in guiding a team to balance creative ambition with technical and production requirements.
Experience and confidence directing actors and athletes for motion capture.
A collaborative, motivated, and accountable approach to team leadership.
Strong knowledge of current animation practices, technologies, and industry trends.
Experience directing or working with real-time animation systems, including blend trees, state machines, motion-matching systems, or comparable runtime solutions, in engines such as Unreal Engine, Unity, Frostbite, or other proprietary technology.

Nice To Haves

Experience evaluating and applying emerging animation technologies, including machine learning, procedural animation, performance capture, and automation tools, to improve quality or production efficiency.
A passion for sports and strong knowledge of American football.
Technical fluency with scripting, tools, or engine workflows that supports effective collaboration with engineers and technical teams

Responsibilities

Define and deliver the vision and quality bar for all motion in the game.
Drive animation quality while balancing performance, continuity, technical, scheduling, and budgetary requirements.
Hire, mentor, guide, and manage the work of our exceptional animation team.
Provide regular feedback and direction to the animation team.
Drive the evolution of the animation pipeline and establish efficient animation workflows and procedures.
Collaborate with Creative and Art leadership to define the overall animation direction, style, quality, and execution.
Collaborate with Design and Engineering to ensure motion meets the gameplay, responsiveness, and player-experience requirements of the game.
Collaborate with Technical animators, character riggers, and modelers to ensure our characters maintain a consistently high quality bar in motion.
Collaborate with Graphics engineers to ensure characters are grounded in the world through lighting, shadows, visual effects, weather, and environmental interaction.
Collaborate with Physics engineers to ensure characters operate within the physical rules you define and interact with other characters and the environment in believable ways.