Senior Spine Animator

Senior Spine Animator (Characters & Props for Games)

We are hiring a Senior Spine Animator for our client — a gaming product company creating stylized real-time interactive experiences for global audiences.

We’re looking for an experienced 2D Spine Animator with strong keyframe animation skills and solid production experience in game development. This role focuses on creating expressive character and prop animations for real-time gameplay, as well as building clean and production-ready Spine rigs for efficient integration into game engines.

The ideal candidate combines strong artistic taste, technical understanding, and the ability to work efficiently in a fast-paced collaborative production environment.

Responsibilities

Spine Animation Production

• Create high-quality character animations with strong acting, personality, and emotional expression
• Animate props, gameplay elements, and occasional UI components
• Build clean, reusable, and production-friendly Spine rigs
• Collaborate closely with animation leads, artists, and technical teams
• Implement feedback efficiently throughout all production stages
• Work within established visual styles while maintaining animation quality and consistency
• Support asset integration workflows for Unity and other real-time pipelines

Pipeline & Workflow

• Maintain full animation workflow:
  • Rigging
  • Key poses
  • In-betweens
  • Secondary motion
  • Polish
  • Export & integration
• Maintain organized file structures and naming conventions
• Follow production tracking and task management processes
• Collaborate with adjacent teams on asset preparation and optimization

Requirements

Must-Have

• 5+ years of experience in Spine 2D animation for games
• Strong mastery of:
  • Posing
  • Timing
  • Arcs
  • Weight
  • Acting
  • Emotional animation
• Advanced Spine knowledge, including rig creation and animation workflows
• Solid understanding of export, optimization, and integration pipelines
• Experience working in collaborative cross-functional production teams
• Strong communication and feedback implementation skills
• English, Mandarin, or Ukrainian proficiency

Nice to Have

• Experience with Photoshop or digital drawing tools
• Familiarity with VFX and video editing workflows
• Ability to draw poses, storyboards, animatics, or expression sheets
• Experience with frame-by-frame or 3D animation
• Experience working with Unity pipelines

What Success Looks Like

• High-quality and expressive character animation
• Clean, scalable, and production-friendly Spine rigs
• Efficient collaboration across art and technical teams
• Smooth integration into real-time game pipelines
• Consistently polished animation quality across projects

What We Offer

• Remote / hybrid flexibility
• Optional relocation support
• Hardware allowance
• Flexible paid time off policy
• Learning & development budget
• International production environment
• Long-term collaboration on stylized real-time products