Lead Technical Artist-characters

Job Description

Avalanche is a Warner Bros. Games studio located in downtown Salt Lake City nestled against the backdrop of the beautiful Wasatch Mountains. We've been in the video game business since 1995, creating interactive experiences for fans of the world's largest franchises. Join the team behind the blockbuster open world, action RPG Hogwarts Legacy as we create what's next!
The Job
We're looking for a Lead Character Technical Artist with strong Unreal, Maya and Python experience to join our team. You should have a passion for all aspects of character and creature development. This role focuses on ensuring we integrate the highest quality characters and creatures while also keeping them efficient and performant both for animators in a DCC and in engine. You will partner closely with Character Art, Animation, and Engineering to improve pipeline efficiency, scalability, and runtime quality. Over time, this role may grow to mentor and build a small character-focused tech art team.

Key Responsibilities
• Support character artists, riggers, animators, and engineers by developing tools, troubleshooting issues, and defining best practices.
• Build, maintain, and optimize character rigs using Maya HIK, and mGear and integrate them successfully into Unreal pipelines.
• Drive effective use and customization of MetaHuman workflows.
• Oversee character engine integration, validation, and runtime performance tuning.
• Optimize skeletal meshes, materials, animation systems, and LOD strategies for scalability.
• Identify and resolve technical risks while preserving established visual direction.
• Drive tools and techniques to elevate all aspects of character/creature visuals
• Mentor and support technical artists, with potential to grow a focused character tech art team.
• Identify strategies for integrating AI into character development workflow.
Qualifications
• Strong Unreal foundation.
• Deep understanding of character pipelines from modeling through rigging, skinning, and runtime integration.
• Advanced experience with mGear (or comparable modular rigging systems).
• Extensive experience working with MetaHuman workflows.
• Experience optimizing characters for real-time performance constraints.
• Python and/or C++ tool development experience within Unreal and DCC applications (e.g., Maya).
• Experience troubleshooting and optimizing complex Blueprints.
• 10+ years in game development with at least 4 shipped titles.
• Strong communication and documentation skills and ability to collaborate within an established creative direction.
• Portfolio demonstrating character and rigging expertise required.

Championing Inclusion at WBD
Warner Bros. Discovery embraces the opportunity to build a workforce that reflects a wide array of perspectives, backgrounds and experiences. Being an equal opportunity employer means that we take seriously our responsibility to consider qualified candidates on the basis of merit, without regard to race, color, religion, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, age, mental or physical disability, and genetic information, marital status, citizenship status, military status, protected veteran status or any other category protected by law.
If you're a qualified candidate with a disability and you require adjustments or accommodations during the job application and/or recruitment process, please visit our accessibility page for instructions to submit your request.

Jobcode: Reference SBJ-yjk5jk-216-73-216-117-42 in your application.