Full-Time

Senior VFX Artist & Animation Generalist

Posted on 8/17/2026

Gram Games

Gram Games

51-200 employees

Mobile puzzle game developer and publisher

No salary listed

London, UK

In Person

On-site role in London.

Category
Art, Graphics & Animation (1)
Required Skills
Animation
Unity

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Requirements
  • Significant experience at a Senior, Lead, or Principal level creating real-time visual effects and animations for games, specifically casual puzzle games or highly polished free-to-play titles.
  • Proven experience owning, building, or significantly contributing to a visual effects and animation pipeline for mobile.
  • A strong grasp of fundamental animation principles applied to gameplay elements, user interfaces, and effects.
  • Strong hands-on experience making visual effects and animations directly in Unity.
  • A strong portfolio showing high-quality in-game visual effects and motion design from idea to final implementation, highlighting tactile and satisfying visual feedback.
  • The ability to create assets from early ideation, concept, mood boards, mockups, prototypes, or rough direction and turn them into polished in-engine results.
  • A strong understanding of mobile performance constraints and optimization techniques.
  • The ability to troubleshoot visual bugs, sorting issues, and performance problems.
  • Strong collaboration skills across art, design, technical art, engineering, and production.
  • A proactive, organized, and self-driven approach to the work.
Responsibilities
  • Own, build, and optimize the visual effects and animation pipeline, establishing efficient workflows tailored to dynamic and rewarding interactions in top-tier casual puzzle games.
  • Create high-quality visual effects and animations from ideation, concept, and visual exploration through final implementation in Unity.
  • Design and implement tactile interactions and celebratory effects that make player interactions feel satisfying.
  • Develop creative ideas that make puzzle pieces, user interfaces, environments, and effects feel alive and responsive.
  • Work hands-on with Unity workflows, including the Animation Timeline, Particle System, Shader Graph, Universal Render Pipeline, custom materials, and animation-driven effects.
  • Translate concepts, prototypes, gameplay needs, and rough ideas into clear, polished in-engine effects and motion.
  • Optimize visual effects and animations for mobile by balancing visual ambition with performance, memory, readability, and production constraints.
  • Identify visual, technical, and workflow bottlenecks in the pipeline and propose practical solutions.
  • Collaborate with technical art and engineering on shaders, tools, profiling, and runtime performance.
  • Own a feature’s visual effects and motion from start to finish by shaping the idea, exploring visual direction, implementing it in Unity, polishing it, and keeping stakeholders informed and aligned.

Gram Games develops mobile puzzle and hyper-casual games for a global audience, with hit titles like 1010! and Merge Dragons! that are free-to-play and monetize via IAP and ads. 1010! is a simple game where players place blocks on a 10x10 grid to form lines and clear the board; Merge Dragons! lets players match items to heal a magical land and evolve dragons. The company started in Istanbul in 2012, grew a studio network and was acquired by Zynga in 2018 for $250 million in cash. Its goal is to maintain a portfolio of live, free-to-play games that steadily generate revenue and grow daily active users through compelling live services.

Company Size

51-200

Company Stage

Acquired

Total Funding

$1.2M

Headquarters

London, United Kingdom

Founded

2012

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Simplify Jobs

Simplify's Take

What believers are saying

  • Gram Games posted nine openings in June 2026, signaling active product investment.
  • Merge Dragons! received a May 13, 2026 Android update with bug fixes and performance work.
  • June 2026 event cadence shows an enduring live-service funnel for spending and retention.

What critics are saying

  • Merge Dragons! carries the franchise; one title shock hits most revenue immediately.
  • Take-Two can slash duplicated mobile costs quickly, pressuring Gram Games headcount by 2027.
  • Hyper-casual design has commoditized; 1010! offers little moat against clone competition.

What makes Gram Games unique

  • Gram Games pairs Istanbul engineering with London monetization, sustaining global free-to-play execution.
  • Merge Dragons! still ships events through June 2026, proving durable live-ops depth.
  • Take-Two-owned Gram Games keeps 2026 hiring open across data, UA, engineering, and design.

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Benefits

Health Insurance

Private medical care

Life insurance

Fertility Treatment Support

Family Planning Benefits

Growth & Insights and Company News

Headcount

6 month growth

4%

1 year growth

4%

2 year growth

4%
Pocket Gamer
Nov 4th, 2025
Arcadia Gaming Partners invests $4m in Iron Games studio led by former Gram Games execs

A new UK-based mobile studio called Iron Games set up by former executives at Merge Dragons developer Gram Games has received $4 million from Arcadia Gaming Partners