Animation Jobs in Kansas (NOW HIRING)

Scopely is looking for a Lead Technical Artist to join our unannounced project in person at our Culver City hub, or remotely within the US or Canada.

At Scopely, we care deeply about what we do and want to inspire play, every day - whether in our work environments alongside our talented colleagues or through our deep connections with our communities of players. We are a global team of game lovers who are developing, publishing, and innovating the mobile games industry, connecting millions of people worldwide daily.

We are in the early stages of development on an ambitious, unannounced, cross-platform Strategy/MMO featuring a well-known IP. You have the opportunity to join a highly experienced team to make a lasting impact on one of the next big releases.

What You Will Do

We are looking for a hands-on Lead Technical Artist to help drive technical art direction, tools development, content pipelines, optimization efforts, and cross-disciplinary collaboration for a large-scale mobile, live service game project.

This role combines active technical contribution with team leadership. The ideal candidate is equally comfortable building tools, solving complex production challenges, guiding technical strategy, supporting artists and animators, and partnering with engineering, design, production, QA, outsourcing, and co-development teams.

This is not a pure management role. We are looking for a technical leader who remains close to the work, enjoys solving problems directly, and can help make an entire development organization more effective.

What We're Looking For

• Highly experienced in Technical Art, Tools Development, Pipeline Development, Game Development, or a related discipline.
• Significant hands-on experience building tools, scripts, automation, or pipeline systems.
• Strong experience developing tools or workflows for Unity.
• Strong experience with DCC tools such as Maya, Blender, Houdini, or similar.
• Proficiency with C#, Python, or similar scripting/programming languages.
• Experience optimizing game content for memory, performance, asset size, loading, or runtime efficiency.
• Strong understanding of game content pipelines, asset integration, source control, and production workflows.
• Experience leading or mentoring Technical Artists, Technical Animators, Riggers, or similar technical content roles.
• Experience working with outsourcing and/or co-development partners.
• Excellent communication skills and the ability to work across Art, Animation, Engineering, Design, Production, QA, and external teams.
• Comfortable working with distributed teams across multiple time zones.
• Artists, animators, designers, and developers are unblocked quickly and supported by reliable workflows.
• Tools and pipelines improve team efficiency and reduce repeated manual work.
• Content is easier to create, validate, integrate, and optimize.
• Technical risks are identified early and communicated clearly.
• The technical art team is well-supported, well-prioritized, and aligned with project goals.
• Internal and external teams can deliver content that meets quality, workflow, and performance expectations.
• The project has a clear technical art direction that balances creativity, production needs, and platform realities.

Hands-On Technical Art Development

• Design, build, and maintain tools, automation, and workflows for both Unity and DCC applications.
• Develop editor tools, validation systems, pipeline utilities, and workflow improvements that increase team efficiency.
• Prototype technical solutions for content creation, game integration, visual systems, and production workflows.
• Investigate and resolve complex technical issues across assets, shaders, materials, animation, prefabs, source control, build processes, and runtime content.
• Support implementation of art, animation, VFX, and gameplay-facing visual systems in-engine.

Technical Leadership & Pipeline Ownership

• Own and evolve technical art workflows from content creation through engine integration and production adoption.
• Establish technical standards, best practices, naming conventions, validation requirements, and content guidelines.
• Partner with Art, Animation, Engineering, Design, QA, Production, and external partners to define scalable production pipelines.
• Identify pipeline risks, recurring workflow pain points, and technical bottlenecks, then drive practical solutions.
• Help teams make informed technical tradeoffs while preserving creative goals and meeting performance requirements.

Performance & Optimization

• Drive optimization efforts across content pipelines, runtime assets, shaders, materials, animation systems, memory usage, and asset delivery.
• Partner with engineering teams to diagnose and resolve rendering, memory, asset loading, and performance issues.
• Establish and communicate technical budgets and platform constraints.
• Help content teams understand and work within mobile performance requirements.
• Review assets and workflows for scalability, efficiency, and runtime impact.

Team Leadership & Coordination

• Manage, mentor, and support a team of approximately 6-9 Technical Artists, Technical Animators, and Riggers.
• Help prioritize teamwork across tools, pipelines, support requests, production needs, and long-term technical goals.
• Coordinate technical animation and rigging efforts with animation, character art, design, engineering, and production teams.
• Provide feedback, career support, and clear expectations for direct reports.
• Support planning, staffing, and roadmap discussions for technical art workstreams.

Technical Support & Team Enablement

• Act as a technical resource for artists, animators, designers, and developers across the project.
• Help unblock day-to-day production issues in Unity, DCC tools, source control, content workflows, and technical pipelines.
• Translate recurring support issues into better tools, documentation, validation, or workflow changes.
• Communicate technical constraints and solutions clearly to both technical and non-technical stakeholders.
• Help teams work more efficiently by improving the systems, processes, and tools they rely on.

Outsourcing & Co-Development

• Collaborate with outsourcing and co-development partners to define technical expectations, workflows, and integration requirements.
• Support external teams with tools, documentation, troubleshooting, and feedback.
• Ensure externally developed content meets project standards, technical requirements, and performance expectations.
• Coordinate across distributed teams and time zones to keep technical artwork aligned and moving forward.

Bonus Points

• Experience developing mobile games.
• Experience with Unity editor tooling and custom workflow development.
• Experience with shader, material, rendering, or asset bundle optimization.
• Experience with technical animation, rigging, character pipelines, or animation implementation.
• Experience creating validation tools, content review systems, or production-readiness workflows.
• Experience with Git, Perforce, or similar source control systems.
• Experience managing technical request intake, prioritization, or Jira-based workflows.
• Experience supporting large-scale content teams through tools, documentation, and technical support.