Lead Character Artist [Fixed Term]

JOB TITLE SENIOR GAMEPLAY & ANIMATION ENGINEER Department Engineering  Location(s)  Brighton (preferred), Brno, Prague Reports To  Lead engineer Job Type (Permanent, fixed term, internship)  Permanent Who We Are Home to the award winning Mafia franchise, our team are united by passion for rich narrative storytelling, cinematic presentation and AAA craft. We're looking for creative minds and driven professionals who share our love of story, style, and adventure. If you're ready to help shape the next generation of narrative driven games, we'd love to hear from you. Job Summary  As a Senior Gameplay & Animation Engineer you will set a  high bar for code quality and a passion for gameplay and animation. In this role, you will own and continue the development of our key gameplay and animation systems, you will extend and maintain the code of our technology, tools, and pipelines, working closely with the animators, character artists, designers, and programmers to help develop spectacular gameplay features for our games.   Duties and Responsibilities   * Work within Unreal Engine 5 adapting existing systems and building new technology to fulfil the project’s technical needs and creativity. * Prototyping and coding gameplay and animation features * Work closely and constructively with design, animation, and engineering teams to realise creative ambitions *  Support planning efforts by estimating and dependency checking gameplay feature development *  Identify technical and developmental risks/obstacles and generate solutions to overcome identified risks * Research coding techniques and algorithms in order to keep current on technological developments and advancements in the game industry.   Essential Skills, Attributes and Experience * Demonstrable programming experience in a creative environment * Shipped one or more AAA game titles, ideally using Unreal Engine * Advanced proficiency in C++, linear algebra, 3D Maths and strong familiarity with Object-Oriented (OO) design principles * Experience with GAS - the Unreal Gameplay Ability System * Unreal Engine, Blueprints and Unreal Animation Principles  * Dedication to code quality and documentation, and ability to learn and master new technologies and code * Ability to work independently and efficiently under deadlines * Effective communicator and collaborator with multi-disciplinary team members   Highly Desirable  * Hands-on experience developing for Unreal Engine and Xbox Series X/S and PS5 * Experience with player controlled characters, Unreal enhanced inputs, cameras and camera systems * Implementation experience in one or more of the following areas, Inverse Kinematics techniques, Ragdoll and physics-based character animation, Procedural animation techniques, Keyframe animation and forward kinematics, Machine learning driven animation techniques   ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Hangar 13  prides itself on the diversity of its team members, partners, and communities.  For this reason, we remain committed to providing equal employment opportunity in all aspects of the employment relationship, from recruitment and hiring through compensation, benefits, discipline and termination.   As an equal opportunity employer, we are also committed to ensuring that qualified individuals with disabilities are provided reasonable accommodation(s) to participate in the job application and/or interview process, to perform their essential job functions, and to receive other benefits and privileges of employment.  Please contact us if you need to request reasonable accommodation. SECURITY NOTICE -  We have recently been made aware of increasing occurrences of bad actors posing as company HR personnel to gain information from "potential candidates", in the form of job interviews and offers. These scams can be quite sophisticated and appear legitimate. Please know that Hangar 13 and 2K never use instant messaging apps to contact prospective employees or to conduct interviews. If you believe you have been a victim of such a scam, you may fill out a complaint form at https://complaint.ic3.gov/ and https://reportfraud.ftc.gov/ detailing as much as possible. We are taking these matters very seriously and apologize for any inconvenience. #LI-Hybrid #LI-JF1

Description Position at DNEG * This role is currently not open. Please apply knowing that it is to make us aware of your interest, should future roles open up - thank you!!!* As a Lead Look Development Artist at DNEG, you’ll play a critical role in shaping high-quality, photorealistic character assets by contributing to the lookdev pipeline and collaborating closely with texturing, lighting, and pipeline teams across our global studios. Drawing on your technical and artistic expertise, you’ll help refine workflows, troubleshoot complex shading challenges, and champion best practices across our new pipeline. This is a hands-on creative and technical role ideal for artists who enjoy solving visual problems, developing materials and shaders, and helping build the future of look development at scale. Must Haves Minimum 5 years of professional experience in look development within high-end VFX. Expert knowledge of Houdini and Maya for look development tasks. Strong technical understanding of shading and material development in Solaris, with experience in lighting/lookdev workflows. Strong experience working with character assets. Familiarity with texturing and painting software such as Mari and Substance Painter/Designer. Experience working within a Linux-based production environment. Strong grasp of real-world lighting, material response, and physical properties (depth, scale, proportion). Strong artistic eye for surface detail, colour, roughness variation, and material breakup grounded in real-world reference. Proven experience balancing visual quality with render efficiency and production constraints. Nice to Have Familiarity with USD workflows and real-time platforms like Unity or Unreal. Hands-on experience with Photoshop, Nuke, and other compositing or painting tools. Shader authoring experience using VEX, OSL, Lua, or other shading languages. Experience working in real-time or virtual production environments. A strong eye for detail and storytelling through materials and surface definition. About You You have a passion for crafting visually stunning materials that support storytelling and realism. You’re comfortable owning assets end-to-end, from first material pass to final approval. You’re a strong communicator who can translate complex ideas into clear, actionable steps. You’re curious and proactive, always looking for ways to improve workflows, solve problems, or learn something new. You’re calm under pressure and able to manage your time effectively, even when juggling multiple tasks or shows. You’re self-motivated, detail-oriented, and proud of delivering work that not only looks great but functions well within a pipeline. You’re excited by emerging technologies, real-time workflows, and the evolving role of lookdev in modern production environments. About Us We are DNEG, one of the world’s leading visual effects and animation companies for the creation of award-winning feature film, television, and multiplatform content. We employ more than 9,000 people with worldwide offices and studios across North America (Los Angeles, Montréal, Toronto, Vancouver), Europe (London), Asia (Bangalore, Mohali, Chennai, Mumbai) and Australia (Sydney). At DNEG, we fundamentally believe that embracing our differences is a vital component of our collective success. We are committed to creating an equitable, diverse and inclusive work environment for our global teams, where everyone feels they matter and belong. We welcome and encourage applications from all, regardless of background, experience or disability. Please let us know if you need any adjustments or support during the application process, we will do our best to accommodate your needs. We look forward to meeting you!