Senior Animation Systems Programmer Job at Rockstar North in San Diego

Become part of a team working on some of the most rewarding, large-scale creative projects to be found in any entertainment medium - all within an inclusive, highly-motivated environment where you can learn and collaborate with some of the most talented people in the industry.

Rockstar is on the lookout for a talented Senior Animation Systems Programmer to join the Animation R&D team. This position will help us in developing advanced animation systems for large open world character-based games. We are looking for a candidate with strong C++ programming skills, good knowledge of and interest in character animation systems, and passion for realistic, high quality character motion.

This is a full-time, in-office position based out of Rockstar’s new state-of-the-art game development studio in Carlsbad, CA. 

WHAT WE DO

• We develop animation technology, from performance capture to a sophisticated runtime engine, for massive open world games.

• We are a global team of programmers and researchers who collaborate on pushing the boundaries of character animation on next generation hardware.

• We support and work closely with performance capture, technical art, animation, physics, and gameplay teams across multiple Rockstar studios.

RESPONSIBILITIES

• Join our core animation technology team and work closely with animation, gameplay, physics, graphics, technical art, and tools teams across different Rockstar studios.

• Develop, maintain, extend, and support an extensive high-level animation system, pipeline, and tools.

• Implement well designed, robust, highly optimal new animation features, integrating them into our existing animation, gameplay, physics, and graphics systems.

• Keep up to date with the latest academic and industry breakthroughs, independently research and develop improvements to continuously push our technology forward.

QUALIFICATIONS

• A degree in Computer Science or related discipline.

• 5+ years of industry experience working as an engine or animations systems programmer.

• Industry experience working on AAA character based games, or character based VFX animation.

• Experience developing within a large existing codebase, collaborating or working independently within a large team.

SKILLS

• Strong C/C++ programming skills.

• Familiarity with common optimization and multi-threading techniques.

• Good communication skills, ability to clearly share complex technical information with other programmers, animators and technical artists.

• Strong 3D math skills.

PLUSES

Please note that these are desirable skills and are not required to apply for the position.

• C# or python programming skills.

• Experience creating, extending or working directly with an animation system within a game engine.

• Involvement with pipeline or UI based tools development or support.

• Experience creating or working directly with physics or gameplay systems.

• Practical success optimizing or debugging large/complex multithreaded C++ code.