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Senior Technical Artist - EA Sports Technology (Rigging & Deformation)

EA SPORTS is one of the most iconic brands in entertainment – connecting hundreds of millions around the world to the sports they love through a portfolio of industry-leading video games.

EA SPORTS Tech provides specialized technology teams working on modern character articulation and motion, content pipelines and workflows, machine learning, game security, dev ops, as well as long lead feature and technology development for all EA SPORTS titles. As part of EA SPORTS Tech, the Initiatives Team pushes visual boundaries and experiences for our players. We invest in future technologies, shared tooling, and production workflows. We combine creativity and imagination with technical expertise. We are a diverse group that encourages team members to bring their unique perspectives and expertise to work every day.

About the Role
Are you passionate about new technologies and continually pushing the boundaries of game development? Great, so are we! EA Sports Technical Art is seeking a Senior Rigging Technical Artist to partner with project leadership and our incredible team of Technical Artists, Character Artists, and Software Engineers to develop the next generation of content creation tools. The work you do will have a direct business impact to EA Sports and contribute to the foundation for future technology developments.

Your Responsibilities
As a Senior Rigging Technical Artist you’ll help us to develop some incredible rigging-centric game features. In this role, you will be pushing the boundaries of character deformation and solving some of the biggest unsolved avatar system challenges in real-time graphics with an incredible team. Your responsibilities and tasks will include: character deformation, prototyping and developing workflows, asset maintenance, and script/tool development. TAs are expected to assume ownership of their content, and resolve any technical or quality issues that arise.

Your Qualifications

• At least 5+ years of cinematic/games production experience working in technical art/rigging/animation.
• Expert knowledge designing complex skeletons, control rigs, secondary animation.
• Experience with game engines (commercial or proprietary).
• Effective at communicating with different audiences: artists, engineers, managers.
• Proficient scripting/programming in Python (knowledge of C++ and C# a bonus).
• Expertise with Autodesk Maya and Bifrost.
• Experience with asset optimization challenges and real-time limitations specific to character deformation.
• A solutions-provider, especially as it pertains to testing and debugging technical issues.
• Knowledge of human anatomy and animation principles
• A willingness to jump into the unknown and solve new problems to resolve technical challenges and limitations.
• A Passion for Games!

Great To Have

• Experience with Machine Learning deformation and generating training data
• Experience with Git and code review
• Character simulation experience
• Experience with / understanding of 3D mathematics
• Experience with Houdini / procedural node graph systems
• Familiarity with motion capture (data + acquisition)

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BC COMPENSATION AND BENEFITS

The base salary ranges listed below are for the defined geographic market pay zones in these locations. If you reside outside of these locations, a recruiter will advise on the base salary range and benefits for your specific location.

EA has listed the base salary ranges it in good faith expects to pay applicants for this role in the locations listed, as of the time of this posting. Salary offered will be determined based on numerous relevant business and candidate factors including, for example, education, qualifications, certifications, experience, skills, geographic location, and business or organizational needs.

BASE SALARY RANGES

• British Columbia (depending on location e.g. Vancouver vs. Victoria):
º $133,400 - $193,200 CAN Annually

Base salary is just one part of the overall compensation at EA. We also offer a package of benefits including vacation (3 weeks per year to start), 10 days per year of sick time, paid top-up to EI/QPIP benefits up to 100% of base salary when you welcome a new child (12 weeks for maternity, and 4 weeks for parental/adoption leave), extended health/dental/vision coverage, life insurance, disability insurance, retirement plan to regular full-time employees. Certain roles may also be eligi ble for bonus and equity. "