Technical Animator

Aston Carter•Seattle, WA

14h•$45 - $46•Onsite

About The Position

This client is developing next-generation animated avatars to support employee training and accessibility initiatives through real-time 3D character experiences in Unreal Engine. We are seeking a skilled Technical Animator with expertise in Unreal Engine, MetaHuman workflows, Control Rig development, and motion-capture integration. The ideal candidate will have a strong experience in character animation and rigging, with specialized experience creating realistic and expressive hand, finger, and upper-body movements. This role is critical to the development of characters where precision, natural motion, and character believability are essential.

Requirements

4+ years of experience in Technical Animation, Character Animation, Game Development, Virtual Production, or Interactive Media.
Advanced proficiency in Unreal Engine animation systems, including Animation Blueprints, Control Rig, Blend Spaces, Montages, and Sequencer.
Experience building and maintaining character rigs for MetaHuman or Unreal Engine skeletons.
Hands-on experience importing, retargeting, cleaning, and integrating motion-capture data.
Strong understanding of character rigging, skinning, deformation, body mechanics, and animation principles.
Demonstrated expertise animating realistic hands, fingers, gestures, and nuanced character performances.
Proficiency in Maya, Blender, or comparable 3D animation software.
Ability to rapidly prototype, iterate, and respond to technical and creative feedback.

Nice To Haves

Experience with gesture-based communication.
Experience creating Control Rigs specifically for hand articulation, finger posing, and detailed gesture animation.
Knowledge of facial performance capture, FACS-based animation systems, and facial rig customization.
Experience with MetaHuman pipelines, including facial animation, retargeting, LOD management, and rig customization.
Experience with virtual humans, digital avatars, or real-time character systems.
Familiarity with Perforce or similar version control systems.
Experience in AAA games, cinematics, VFX, or virtual production environments.

Responsibilities

Import, retarget, clean, and optimize motion-capture data for real-time playback in Unreal Engine.
Design, build, and maintain animation rigs and Control Rigs for MetaHuman and Unreal-based characters.
Create and refine highly detailed hand and finger animations that support accurate sign language communication and natural character performance.
Develop facial animation assets including expressions, eye gaze behaviors, and idle states.
Implement and maintain Animation Blueprints, Blend Spaces, Montages, State Machines, and animation layers within Unreal Engine.
Prototype and iterate on signing gestures, transitions, conversational behaviors, and avatar interactions.
Collaborate with engineers, designers, and accessibility specialists to ensure animation quality and technical performance.
Produce demos and visual assets for stakeholder reviews and deployment readiness.
Establish animation standards, documentation, naming conventions, and pipeline best practices.