Senior Animator - The Sims

Welcome to Maxis, home to tinkerers, craftspeople, & storytellers. Our drive is to inspire everyone to make a better world through creative play. As the developer of The Sims, we create games and experiences for millions of people around the world and are always looking for new ways to inspire our players. Maxis is a place where you can do what you love and help others grow while doing it; a place where your unique voice can be heard and seen. We put creativity and inclusivity at the core of our work and don't settle for seeing the world only as it is, but strive to build a world as it could be.

Location: Hybrid, Vancouver three days a week onsite at the studio.

As a Senior Animator with Maxis, you will work with our art, animation, and tech teams to explore new workflows and technologies within the animation sphere of game development, including emerging tools and systems that enhance automation. This is a collaborative environment across multiple products focused on R&D to help improve the quality and quantity of the asset creation process. You will also present and guide other Sims members through the innovations and developments, offering your perspective, artistic opinions, and proposed workflow insertions. Overall, you will seek opportunities to enhance our games through surfacing and adopting modern technologies that harmonize with our unique products.

You will be reporting to the Development Director.

Responsibilities:

• Research
  • Iterating and validating functionality of existing and upcoming animation systems
  • Create temporary assets for the purpose of technical prototyping and research
  • Assess the latest technologies to evaluate viability for The Sims franchise
  • Open to emerging technology research and systems
• Partnership
  • Improve upon team projects with our product partners
  • Provide and translate feedback to our technical partners
  • Represent and prioritize the interests of our partner teams through the lens of the animation craft
  • Independently guide initiative progress and action items across partnering disciplines
• Supporting Tech
  • Be an important partner in evaluating and testing new tools, workflows and pipeline systems in Maya, Unreal, and other tools for future development.
  • Support Animation, Tech Animation and Tech Art across multiple prototypes, while targeting and advocating for the Animation vision across multiple products.
• Documentation / Communication
  • Document R&D efforts of technical evaluations to entire teams
  • Present work to members of the team at multiple levels.

Qualifications:

• 5+ years experience working in game development and content creation.
• Knowledge of stylized hand-keyed animation and motion capture clean up
• Collaborate across discipline peers
• Use and troubleshoot animation issues in Maya, Unreal, and in-game Engine
• Experience with pre-production through prototyping and R&D relating to development of animation tools and systems
• Experience overseeing animation systems from start to finish, as an animation customer in partnership with technical disciplines
• Understanding of documentation software like Miro, Coda, and Google Workspace
• History of promoting your ideas and gaining agreement across a larger audience
• Worked with designing and hooking up node-based systems (state machines)
• Experience in documentation of research and presenting to peers and animators.
• You enjoy exploration, research, and tinkering with technology.

Materials required for the Application

Reel (through website, blog, or online gallery)

COMPENSATION AND BENEFITS

The ranges listed below are what EA in good faith expects to pay applicants for this role in these locations at the time of this posting. If you reside in a different location, a recruiter will advise on the applicable range and benefits. Pay offered will be determined based on a number of relevant business and candidate factors (e.g. education, qualifications, certifications, experience, skills, geographic location, or business needs). 

PAY RANGES

* British Columbia (depending on location e.g. Vancouver vs. Victoria) *$111,600 - $152,800 CAD

In British Columbia, we 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 eligible for bonus and equity.

About Electronic Arts

We’re proud to have an extensive portfolio of games and experiences, locations around the world, and opportunities across EA. We value adaptability, resilience, creativity, and curiosity. From leadership that brings out your potential, to creating space for learning and experimenting, we empower you to do great work and pursue opportunities for growth.

We adopt a holistic approach to our benefits programs, emphasizing physical, emotional, financial, career, and community wellness to support a balanced life. Our packages are tailored to meet local needs and may include healthcare coverage, mental well-being support, retirement savings, paid time off, family leaves, complimentary games, and more. We nurture environments where our teams can always bring their best to what they do.

Electronic Arts is an equal opportunity employer. All employment decisions are made without regard to race, color, national origin, ancestry, sex, gender, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, age, genetic information, religion, disability, medical condition, pregnancy, marital status, family status, veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by law. We will also consider employment qualified applicants with criminal records in accordance with applicable law. EA also makes workplace accommodations for qualified individuals with disabilities as required by applicable law.