Lead Game Development Expert, AI-Asset & Animation Production

About the role

Tencent Overseas IT is hiring a lead game development expert with deep AAA production experience to strengthen co-development and technical partnership between Tencent and its overseas investment and partner studios. The role focuses on AI-enabled asset creation, asset performance optimisation, asset visual fidelity, skeleton design, rigging and physics-based animation.

Key responsibilities

• Participate in co-development projects with overseas studios, providing senior expertise in AI asset production, asset performance, visual quality, rigging and physics-based animation.
• Identify opportunities across the asset lifecycle (modelling, texturing, materials, LODs, performance profiling) and animation disciplines (skeleton generation, skinning, control rigs, cloth, hair, rigid-body dynamics and ragdolls).
• Lead or contribute to proof-of-concept projects integrating AI tools with asset authoring tools, rigging environments, physics engines and Unreal Engine or equivalent.
• Evaluate AI solutions, define measurable metrics (creation time, memory/performance budgets, rigging speed, animation quality, pipeline scalability) and drive successful experiments into daily production workflows.
• Work with Art Directors, Technical Artists, Animators, Riggers, Character and Environment Artists, Engineers, Producers and AI specialists, and establish human review and quality-control mechanisms.
• Document reusable AI use cases, pipeline standards and best practices, share knowledge through workshops and technical reviews, and monitor trends in generative AI, neural rendering and procedural content generation.

Required profile

• Bachelor's degree or above in Computer Graphics, Digital Media, Game Development, Art and Design, Animation, Software Engineering or a related discipline; equivalent professional experience also considered.
• At least 8 years of professional experience in technical art, animation technology or a closely related discipline, with significant AAA pipeline exposure.
• Senior role such as Senior Technical Artist, Lead Technical Artist, Technical Art Director, Animation Pipeline Lead or Rigging Lead.
• Proven development experience on a recognised AAA game project, including at least one shipped title where you were directly responsible for asset optimisation, rigging or physics-animation workflows.
• Strong interest in generative AI, machine learning and intelligent automation for asset generation, optimisation, auto-rigging, motion synthesis and physics simulation.
• Excellent English communication skills and willingness to work across regions and time zones and to travel to partner studios in Europe or elsewhere.

Required skills

• Strong understanding of the AAA asset and animation lifecycle, from modelling and rigging to engine integration and runtime optimisation.
• Deep expertise in AAA asset pipelines, material authoring, texture optimisation, shading models, draw call management, skeleton design, rigging, skinning, deformation and physics-based animation.
• Strong experience with Unreal Engine or another major game engine.
• Proficiency in Blender or Maya; working knowledge of Houdini is a plus.
• Tool development or workflow automation with Python, C++, Blueprint or equivalent.