Animation Programmer (offline)

Development and support of in-house game engine (4A Engine).

Extend engine and game animation systems to enable high quality features.

Work directly with animators to prototype and deliver excellent combat, character locomotion, movement mechanics, and cinematics.

Collaborate daily with Designers and AI Programmers to build elegant solutions to challenging problems in complex game worlds.

Proactively come up with ideas on how to improve animation pipeline.

Proactively identify and fix bugs and performance problems in core engine and game systems.

Implement features taking care to write efficient code and with an eye to a quality end-user experience.

Write clean, professional, and maintainable code.

Troubleshoot complex problems as they arise and construct solutions to unforeseen design problems in a timely manner.

Writing necessary supporting documentation.


REQUIREMENTS
Minimum of 3 years’ experience in animation, AI, or a related programming field.

Proven experience in applying modern interactive character animation techniques such as blend-trees, HFSMs, IK, and partial-body animation.

Excellent communicator with strong verbal and written English skills (Russian is a plus).

Minimum of 5 years’ experience writing, debugging, and optimizing C++.

Advanced 3D math skills.

Excellent problem solving and time management skills.

Bachelor’s degree or equivalent in Computer Science or Engineering.

Understanding of the full software development life cycle.

Proactive attitude, self-direction, and motivation.

Desire to help drive the improvement of the game engine year-over-year.

Ability and discipline to execute on strict deadlines

PREFERENCES
Experience implementing IK-driven features.

Experience working with procedural/physically-altered animation techniques.

Experience with cinematics and facial animation.

Experience with animation pipelines and character rigs.

About 4A Games

The studio was established in Kyiv, Ukraine in 2005 by experienced game industry professionals with the aim of creating premium quality games for the latest generation gaming hardware and personal computers. In Summer 2014, the studio moved its headquarters and over 50 members of staff and their families from Ukraine to Malta. In January of 2020, we opened a brand new custom built office in Kyiv and moved our existing local team there.

All our experience, talent and enthusiasm go into creating games with deep story, unique gameplay elements, and highly detailed believable environments. In addition to that, our in-house developed 4A Engine is constantly evolving with the latest industry trends, and being highly scale-able, delivers good performance on older devices while providing amazing visuals on high-end machines.

Currently at the heart of the company are over 150 talented designers, programmers, artists, sound specialists, and writers from all over the world, with a diverse and unique set of backgrounds, bringing years of experience in software development and computer games in particular.

We are driven first and foremost by our Design department. Gameplay, Player Experience, and Atmosphere are king. While we do have feature owners, we welcome ideas and feedback from anywhere and anyone. It doesn’t matter what you were hired for, if you want to put in the effort to help make a feature better, we encourage you to be a part of the process. Building from this, our team is primarily self-driven, and we are responsible for our own time management to get the job done. To balance this however, we do have traditional management structures in place which help ensure we meet our goals on time.

Company website:
http://www.4a-games.com.mt/