Stormind Games

• Define and maintain the studio’s animation vision, style, and principles, in alignment with the overall creative direction. • Collaborate with Game Directors to guide and oversee animation direction across each project, ensuring consistency, quality, emotional impact, and alignment with gameplay and narrative goals. • Contribute, as part of the Directors Team, to maintaining consistency and cross-project quality across all titles in development. • Work with the Studio Director and Production Director on animation resource planning and management. • Supervise and support the animation team, fostering a culture of creativity, collaboration, and continuous improvement. • Review animation pipelines, tools, and implementation processes to ensure efficiency, scalability, and high production quality. • Provide strategic and operational feedback on character animation, cinematics, motion quality, and integration with gameplay systems. • Collaborate with Technical Directors and Engineering teams to optimize animation systems, workflows, and performance within the engine. • Stay up to date with industry trends, emerging technologies (e.g. motion capture, procedural animation), and animation techniques, integrating best practices into the studio’s processes.

• Define, document, and champion the game's high-level technical architecture. • Lead technical design discussions, collaborating with Senior Programmers (System, Gameplay, Graphics, etc.) to evaluate solutions and select the best path forward. • Act as the guardian of code quality, performance, and stability, ensuring all systems work cohesively. • Champion pragmatic engineering solutions. • Lead and mentor the entire programming team, fostering a collaborative, high-performance culture. • Maintain a constant, high-level awareness of all technical workstreams. • Proactively identify when an engineer might be "going off-track" or implementing a solution that violates the core architecture or engineering common sense, and guide them back. • Design, implement, and maintain core systems & features yourself when necessary. • Analyze, profile, and optimize systems and features when needed. • Support and provide guidance in debugging and fixing complex issues. • Collaborate to find the best possible compromises between design ambitions and technical reality. • Analyze new features and design decisions to ensure they are technically feasible, can be implemented within the schedule, and will not corrupt the existing technical infrastructure. • Work closely with production to define technical roadmaps, estimate timelines, and identify potential risks. • Ensure the team has the right tools and processes to work efficiently. • Conduct high-level code reviews to enforce standards and maintain a healthy codebase.

• Source Code Management: Build Unreal Engine from source, managing the differences between binary and source distributions. • Integrate commits, fixes and updates from Epic Games’ development branches. • Pipeline Optimization: Master the Unreal Build Tool (UBT) and optimize build phases (BuildTarget, Cooking, Staging, Packaging). • Implement strategies to speed up iteration times (e.g., proper DerivedDataCache configuration). • Configuration Management: Manage and troubleshoot .ini files (DefaultGame, DefaultEngine) and project descriptors (.uproject, Build.cs). • Detect and fix "malconfigurations" that impact build success or runtime stability (e.g., inclusion lists, cooking filters). • Debugging & Analysis: Analyze complex build logs to identify root causes of failures (asset vs. code). • Debug the build process directly via Visual Studio or Rider. • Platform Specifics: Handle platform-specific configurations for video codecs, compression formats, PlayGO, Chunking, StreamingInstall, and Achievements. • Platform SDK Integration: Integrate and maintain SDKs for Steam, PS5, Xbox Series X|S, and Nintendo Switch 1 & 2. • Resolve compatibility issues between specific SDK versions and Unreal Engine. • Console Management: Manage devkits (local and remote) for all major platforms. • Submission & Patching: Administer platform web-portals, package, patch and submit builds for major platforms such as Steam, PS5, Xbox, Switch via the proper platform tools (Steamworks SDK, prospero-pub-cmd, MakePKG, AuthoringEditor). • CI/CD Management: Administer and maintain CI/CD pipelines using Jenkins, TeamCity, or similar tools. • Version Control: Administer Git (GitLFS) and Perforce repositories. • Handle complex operations: branching strategies, rebasing, cherry-picking, stashing, and commit reordering. • Bot Automation: Develop and maintain bots for messaging services (Discord, Telegram) to trigger builds or report status.

• Create and implement high-quality real-time visual effects (explosions, fire, smoke, magic, particles, environmental interactions). • Collaborate closely with the Art Director to ensure VFX aligns with the overall art direction and visual vision of the project. • Work with Game Designers and Technical Artists to integrate VFX seamlessly into gameplay systems and mechanics. • Contribute to the development and improvement of VFX pipelines, workflows, and best practices. • Ensure all visual effects are optimized for performance across target platforms. • Review and iterate on VFX assets based on feedback from Art Direction, Design, and Technical teams. • Prototype new ideas and techniques, evaluating feasibility, performance, and visual impact. • Support and mentor junior VFX artists, sharing knowledge and promoting quality standards. • Collaborate with QA to identify and resolve visual or performance-related issues. • Maintain a high level of quality and consistency across all VFX assets.

• Create high-quality character, creature, and gameplay animations aligned with the project’s artistic direction. • Own complex animation features and gameplay systems from concept to final engine integration. • Ensure animation style, quality, and consistency meet creative and technical standards. • Collaborate with the Lead Animator to help define and maintain animation quality benchmarks. • Contribute to the development and refinement of animation pipelines, workflows, and best practices. • Work closely with Technical Animators to ensure smooth implementation, state machine logic, and performance optimization. • Provide clear, constructive feedback during animation reviews to support team quality. • Proactively identify animation risks and propose effective production-ready solutions. • Ensure animations are responsive, polished, and enhance gameplay feel and player experience. • Optimize animations to meet real-time performance requirements. • Support production planning by accurately estimating tasks and delivering assets on schedule. • Mentor mid-level and junior animators, fostering growth and continuous improvement.