At Rockstar Games, we create world-class entertainment experiences.
A career at Rockstar Games is about being part of a team working on some of the most creatively rewarding and ambitious projects to be found in any entertainment medium. You would be welcomed to a dedicated and inclusive environment where you can learn, and collaborate with some of the most talented people in the industry.
Rockstar San Diego is on the lookout for talented Animation Systems Programmer to support the Animation R&D team. This position will be responsible for performing a wide array of performance optimization and debugging related duties within the core of our advanced proprietary animation system. The successful applicant will have strong coding skills and a deep understanding of C++ language fundamentals, with a relentless passion for tracking down that last difficult to reproduce bug, or optimize away that last instruction or byte of memory.
WHAT WE DO
- We develop animation technology, from performance capture to a sophisticated runtime engine, for massive open world games.
- We are a global team of programmers and researchers who collaborate on pushing the boundaries of character animation on next generation hardware.
- We support and work closely with performance capture, technical art, animation, and gameplay teams across multiple Rockstar studios.
RESPONSIBILITIES
- Join our core animation technology team and work closely with gameplay, AI, tools, art, and animation teams.
- Develop, maintain, extend, and support an extensive high-level runtime animation system, pipeline, and tools.
- Help us further optimize features in our multithreaded runtime animation system to push the capabilities and performance of our system forward.
- Enjoy the challenge of diagnosing and triaging difficult to find bugs and crashes in complex multithreaded C++ code.
- Implement well designed, robust, highly optimal new animation system features, integrating them into our existing animation, gameplay, and AI systems.
- Keep up to date with the latest academic and industry breakthroughs; Independently research and develop improvements to continuously push our technology forward.
QUALIFICATIONS
- BSc in Computer Science or equivalent.
- Highly proficient in C++, a deep and extensive knowledge of the language fundamentals and compiler/optimizer techniques.
- Proven success in employing different optimizations strategies (e.g. multi-threading, vectorization, caching, compression, etc.).
- Proficient at using memory, CPU and GPU profilers.
- Experience debugging crashes from core dumps in large/complex multithreaded C++ code.
SKILLS
- Effective communication skills, ability to clearly share complex technical information in written and verbal form with both highly technical and less technical disciplines (e.g. animators, designers, and quality assurance testers).
- Strong time management skills, ability to focus and prioritize in fast paced work environment, stay organized, and keep all stakeholders up to date with progress.
- Be a collaborative team player who can work with other personality types.
- Enthusiasm and eagerness to learn new software, skills, and technologies.
PLUSES
Please note that these are desirable skills and are not required to apply for the position.
- Strong 3D math skills.
- Games industry experience working on AAA character-based titles.
- Experience creating, extending or working directly with an animation system within a game engine.
- Knowledge of SIMD intrinsics.
- Experience investigating assembly code for both optimization and debugging purposes.
- Experience writing unit tests for optimization.
- Experience with non-blocking/lockless multithreaded algorithms.
HOW TO APPLY
Please apply with a CV and cover letter demonstrating how you meet the skills above. If we would like to move forward with your application, a Rockstar recruiter will reach out to you to explain next steps and guide you through the process.
Rockstar is proud to be an equal opportunity employer, and we are committed to hiring, promoting, and compensating employees based on their qualifications and demonstrated ability to perform job responsibilities.
If you’ve got the right skills for the job, we want to hear from you. We encourage applications from all suitable candidates regardless of age, disability, gender identity, sexual orientation, religion, belief, or race.