nDreams studio Elevation are looking for an Animation Programmer to help pave the way forward with fresh innovation for the next generation of VR hardware and software.
Elevation aims to re-establish the boundaries of VR and needs an exceptional Animation Programmer to help them to explore, create, and deliver world leading innovation in VR games. This is an opportunity for you to become one of the core team members and help path-find their remote first studio, crafting a new generation of VR development and bringing core VR games to fruition.
In this role you will be responsible for developing the systems that drive the movement of their characters, creatures, and the world in Unreal to provide a level of immersion and presence that has not yet been seen in VR games.
You will be working in collaboration with a diverse team of programmers, designers, and artists to create genre-leading titles, driving the discovery, implementation, and refinement of intuitive, world class, aspirational VR games.
Your responsibilities…
Develop and refine the systems, pipelines and set-ups that allow characters and the game world to move and come to life, integrating with Unreal animation systems, content creation tools and performance capture
Learn, innovate, and evangelise VR mechanics and conventions, and help drive industry and VR platform innovation
Work within an agile sprint-based ‘fail-faster succeed-sooner' methodology when discovering and exploring new interaction techniques
Support other disciplines in creating robust and performant interactive game content
Help with the higher-level technical design and project planning for your areas of work
Work with your peers to ensure code is clean, organised, documented and easy to maintain
Break down and estimate timescales for your tasks
Contribute to nDreams shared studio technology and drive technical innovation
Be a positive behavioural and mental role model for the team and studio
The skills and experience you’ll bring to the role…
2+ years of professional animation programming experience, with one or shipped titles on console, PC, VR headset or mobile
Thorough knowledge of C++ including high-performance programming
Detailed knowledge of animation programming concepts including animation graphs and state machines, character rigging, complex blending, physics interactions, IK techniques
Knowledge of how to combine animation programming concepts with art to realise convincing character and world animation inside a modern game engine
Knowledge of engine tooling and how in-game animation systems interface into content creation and in-engine tools to enable a multi-discipline effort in authoring interactive content
Demonstrable knowledge of game development processes, real-time implementation, optimization, and cross-platform development
Demonstrable experience of delivering game features and systems using real-time game engines e.g., Unreal or Unity
Strong English communication skills with a focus on positive cross discipline teamwork and an ability to communicate complex technical information to non-technical staff
A committed team player, recognizing the importance and value of people within a technology environment
Passionate about creating award winning VR titles
Non-essential but desirable extras…
Experience of VR game development
Experience developing shipped games in Unreal 4
Good understanding of Blueprint and how to interface it to C++
Previous use of Perforce and Visual studio
Experience developing for PlayStation, Xbox, Steam or Oculus
Comfortable working in an Agile environment, with an ability to responsive positively to change as the project progresses
Approachable and light-hearted, with a good sense of fun and a positive mental attitude
This is the opportunity to build upon an already proven, world class foundation of VR expertise, to further shape and mould a new way of working, which continues to deliver and innovate for the next generation of core VR games.
This is a remote first studio with all the perks that come with it. Work from anywhere to push the boundaries of VR with cutting edge technology and the support of established VR expertise from the wider nDreams group.
Rapidly growing to support a variety of genres, nDreams is one of the world’s leading developers/publishers focused on VR games, creating multiple studios dedicated to making the best games out there.
