Senior Technical Artist II, Characters - Unannounced Game | Irvine, CA

Senior Technical Artist II, Characters - Unannounced Game | Irvine, CA

Team Name:
Unannounced Project

Requisition : R026780

At Blizzard, we craft genre‑defining games and legendary worlds for all to share. Through unparalleled creativity and technical excellence, we create immersive universes and iconic characters that are beloved across platforms, borders, backgrounds, and generations – only made possible by building a work environment that cultivates the artistry of game development and unleashes the aspirations of our people.

We are looking for a Senior Technical Artist, Characters to help craft a new, unannounced game for Blizzard.

As a senior individual contributor on the team, you will play a critical role in defining, building, and maintaining high‑quality character rigging pipelines while ensuring runtime performance and scalability. You will partner closely with animation, character art, and engineering teams to deliver best‑in‑class character solutions and act as a technical leader within the character discipline.

This role is anticipated to be a hybrid work position, with some work on‑site and some work from home. The potential home studio for this role is Irvine, CA.

• Help define and maintain standards and best practices for the character rigging pipeline across the project.
• Build high‑fidelity character rigs while balancing animation needs and runtime performance constraints.
• Serve as a technical problem‑solver and force multiplier by providing support to animators and other technical artists.
• Collaborate closely with character artists, animators, engineers, and production to ensure smooth pipeline integration.
• Mentor and guide other character technical artists, including internal team members and external partners.
• Diagnose, debug, and resolve complex character‑related technical issues across tools and runtime.
• Contribute to documentation, workflows, and pipeline improvements that scale across the team.

• 12+ years of relevant professional experience as a technical artist on AAA game development teams.
• Proven experience shipping at least one major title in a character technical art or closely related role.
• Proven ability to work collaboratively within multidisciplinary teams and foster strong cross‑disciplinary partnerships.
• Demonstrated ability to take ownership of complex systems and drive solutions from concept through implementation.

• Deep knowledge of character animation technologies, including rigging, motion capture, retargeting, physics, runtime rigging, and vertex animation.
• Thorough understanding of anatomy, animation principles, and deformation techniques.
• Solid scripting experience, including proficiency with Python.
• In‑depth knowledge of AAA game engines with a strong understanding of art implementation and integration methods.
• Comprehensive understanding of modern art pipelines and best practices, including proficiency with industry‑standard 3D content creation tools.

• A team‑oriented approach to your work, with a strong emphasis on collaboration and partnership across disciplines.
• The ability to inspire and elevate others through mentorship, technical leadership, and a passion for craft.
• A self‑motivated mindset with the ability to proactively identify and solve complex technical problems.
• A solid understanding of broader game development disciplines outside of technical art, such as character art, animation, VFX, audio, rendering, systems, and design.

• Experience working through early development and pre‑production phases of a project.
• Unreal Engine expertise.
• Ability to flex into other areas of technical art to achieve higher‑quality results.
• Passion for playing a wide variety of video games.

• Portfolio demonstrating character technical art work, including detailed breakdowns of rigs, tools, and problem‑solving approaches.

At Blizzard Entertainment, we pour our hearts and souls into everything we create. Best known for iconic video game universes including Warcraft, Overwatch, Diablo, and Star Craft, we’ve been creating genre‑defining games for millions of players around…