Senior/Lead Gameplay Animator - Character, Controls, and Camera, First-Person Shooter

About the Role
We are looking for a Senior or Lead Gameplay Animator with strong AAA FPS experience to help shape responsive, compelling character movement and moment-to-moment gameplay.
With a focus on Character, Controls, and Camera (3C), you will combine animation craft with practical implementation skills to develop features from early prototypes through final in-game polish. Working closely with gameplay designers, programmers, and technical animators, you will help ensure that character animation, player input, and camera behavior work together to deliver a cohesive player experience.
This is a hands-on role with meaningful ownership of gameplay animation features and opportunities to influence the systems and workflows behind them.

What You’ll Do

• Own gameplay animation features from concept to completion, including reference gathering, prototyping, asset creation, engine integration, debugging, and polish.
• Create high-quality character movement and action animations, covering locomotion, directional changes, stance transitions, traversal, and combat interactions.
• Contribute to first-person animation and its relationship with full-body movement, weapon handling, and camera feedback.
• Partner with designers and programmers to refine movement responsiveness, action timing, transitions, and interruption behavior while preserving believable weight and physicality.
• Build and refine animation graphs, state machines, blend setups, and animation layers within the project’s engine and tools.
• Use keyframe animation and motion-capture workflows to deliver animation that meets gameplay and visual requirements.
• Evaluate your work in playable builds, identify the causes of animation issues, and collaborate across disciplines to resolve them.
• Work with technical animation and engineering teams to improve workflows and address runtime, asset, and production constraints.
• For Lead-level appointments, guide feature planning, establish animation quality benchmarks, provide actionable feedback, and mentor teammates while continuing to create and implement animation directly.

What You’ll Bring

• Proven experience creating and implementing gameplay animation for AAA first-person shooters, with clear ownership of features or animation systems.
• A strong portfolio demonstrating body mechanics, weight, timing, posing, and a clear understanding of responsive gameplay animation.
• Practical experience taking animation assets into a game engine and iterating on their behavior in playable builds.
• Working knowledge of animation graphs, state machines, blending, additive animation, and gameplay-driven transitions.
• An understanding of how character movement, player controls, and camera behavior influence each other and shape game feel.
• Proficiency in professional animation tools, with experience in keyframe animation and motion-capture editing.
• The ability to investigate animation problems, explain their likely causes, and work with design and engineering partners to deliver effective solutions.
• Strong ownership, clear communication, and a consistent record of delivering work within production constraints.

What Will Set You Apart

• Hands-on experience on recent AAA FPS productions with a high standard of player movement, first-person animation, and combat responsiveness.
• Direct involvement in establishing or evolving 3C animation systems, particularly from early development through production.
• Additional experience on AAA action or action-adventure games involving sophisticated traversal, melee combat, or character interactions.
• A technical animation background that enables you to understand and resolve issues across animation assets, runtime systems, and gameplay logic.
• Experience with techniques such as inverse kinematics, motion matching, procedural animation, motion warping, or animation retargeting.
• Scripting or tool-development experience that improves animation workflows and iteration speed.
• Experience maintaining consistency between first-person presentation and third-person character animation.

Senior / Lead Expectations
Senior: Independently own complex animation features, make sound creative and technical decisions, and drive implementation and polish with cross-disciplinary partners.
Lead: Combine strong individual delivery with the ability to guide others, align animation work with gameplay goals, and maintain quality across interconnected features.
We also welcome high-potential candidates with relevant production experience and exceptional portfolios who demonstrate the ability to grow into broader ownership. Level will reflect demonstrated capability and contribution.
Location & Working Arrangement
Relocation to China is preferred. Remote arrangements may be considered based on location, time-zone compatibility, and collaboration needs.

Commitment to Equal Opportunity: NetEase is an Equal Opportunity Employer committed to diversity in its workforce. We consider all qualified applicants without regard to race, color, religion, creed, gender, national origin, age, disability, veteran status, sex, gender expression or identity, sexual orientation, or any other protected characteristic under applicable law. We also comply with applicable federal, state, and local laws regarding applicants with criminal histories. If you require reasonable accommodation due to a disability during any part of the application process, please email [email protected].

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