Founding Animation Engineer

About the role
The Animation Engineer at Uthana is a critical role that bridges generative AI technology with 3D motion for animators. You will develop core technology used in shaping the future of 3D gaming and experiences, collaborating closely with our engineering team and founders to bring Uthana’s vision of stunning, real-time characters to life.

As an early team member, you'll have direct exposure to our go-to-market conversations and have an outsized impact on our roadmap, shaping the frontend architecture, and influencing product direction.

What you will do
Spearhead the journey from ingesting high-quality motion training data to delivering cutting-edge assets to AAA clients, making a direct impact on our innovative projects.

Craft and refine powerful animation libraries that fuel our machine learning models, establishing yourself as a domain expert at the crossroads of 3D animation and ML technology both within and beyond Uthana.

Supercharge our training, working closely with ML engineers to enhance 3D motion data pipelines for peak model performance.

Implement groundbreaking techniques for processing, retargeting, and delivering motion, taking full ownership of the retargeting system to seamlessly support diverse skeletons and rigs across multiple engines.

Support Uthana’s clients by troubleshooting and innovating within our generative processes, empowering them to harness the full potential of our technology.

Collaborate with frontend engineers to pioneer new methods of animating content in 3D web applications.

What you bring to the table
Experience: At least 5 years of software development experience in the game industry.

Programming Skills: Strong proficiency in C++ and Python.

3D Math: Solid understanding of 3D math (linear algebra) including transform matrices, quaternions, and change of basis transformations and its application in animation systems.

Animation Engineering: Proven track record of shipping animation gameplay systems and pipelines, state machines, anim graphs, and animation controllers.

Technical Artistry: Keen eye for animation quality, knowledge of character animation systems, file formats (FBX, GLTF, USD, UAsset), blend trees, skeletons, motion capture, inverse kinematics, retargeting, skinning, and animation compression.

Team Collaboration: Excellent communication skills and the ability to work effectively with both technical and non-technical team members.

Problem-Solving: Strong problem-solving and debugging skills, with meticulous attention to detail.

Nice to have: Experience working in Unity and/or Unreal; experience writing plug-ins for Maya, character rigging, or asset pipeline; experience as 3D Animator, rigger, and/or working with Motion Capture technologies; familiarity with physics-based animation techniques.

Why Uthana, Why Now
Autonomy • Take a role where you have direct control and can make immediate impact with your work

Modernity • Come build at the intersection of two of the fastest changing industries: AI + Games

Equity • As a founding team member, you’ll be joining Uthana before it takes off with backers that include A16Z's Speedrun accelerator, Ace Cap, and Hustle Fund

Maturity • All our team members have 10+ years experience and are at the top of their profession