Lead Animator (Contract) - North America

As Lead Animator, you’ll drive the animation quality, direction, and workflows across a range of high-end game projects. You’ll lead a team of animators delivering fluid, expressive, and technically sound character, creature, and gameplay animations, whether fully keyframed or motion-capture based.

You’ll lead key co-development (co-dev) projects and help establish scalable animation pipelines, documentation, and quality standards that support both internal production and collaboration with global partner studios. Working closely with the global art leadership team, you’ll help facilitate cross-studio collaboration between North America, Asia, and Europe, ensuring creative alignment and consistent production standards worldwide.
Responsibilities:
Lead the creation of high-quality keyframe and motion capture animations for characters, creatures, and gameplay systems.

Define and maintain the animation vision, quality bar, and technical consistency across projects.

Collaborate with Design, Tech Art, Rigging, and Engineering to integrate animation smoothly into gameplay and narrative systems.

Review internal and outsourced animation work, providing clear, constructive feedback to maintain AAA quality benchmarks.

Troubleshoot animation, rigging, and implementation issues, and partner with Tech Art to drive continuous pipeline improvements.

Mentor and guide a team of animators, supporting their development and onboarding.

Partner with production to accurately scope animation deliverables, identify dependencies, and mitigate risks.

Maintain project documentation, style guides, and communication with client-side animation leads or directors.

Attend internal and external meetings, occasionally outside standard business hours, as needed to support project and business goals.

• 5+ years of professional animation experience in game development, with at least 2 years in a lead or senior role.
• Proven experience delivering AAA-quality gameplay and cinematic animation.
• Advanced proficiency in Maya or MotionBuilder, with a strong grasp of animation principles, body mechanics, timing, and weight.
• Hands-on experience with Unreal Engine (4/5) and/or Unity, including animation blueprints, state machines, and real-time implementation.
• Experience with both keyframe and mocap cleanup and retargeting workflows.
• Strong collaboration skills working with Tech Art, Rigging, and Design teams.
• Excellent communication and leadership skills in English, with experience mentoring and directing distributed teams.
• Prior experience with outsourcing or co-development projects preferred.

This role is contract to start with the potential to convert to full time with benefits.

Side is a global video game development and services provider, offering technical and creative solutions to many of the largest developers and studios around the world. Founded in Japan in 1994, Side has grown to become a global force in the video game industry, with over 40 studios in 15 countries worldwide and offices across North America, Europe, South America, and Asia.  

Our industry-leading services include codev, art production, localization, audio production, quality assurance, localization QA, player support, community management, and datasets.  

Help us bring stories to the world. Join Side's global team of passionate gamers and contribute to top-notch game development. Discover opportunities in Asia, North America, South America, Europe, and beyond.   

Experience our side of life! For more information, visit www.side.inc