Principal Animator

Craft:

Art

Job Description:

PRINCIPAL ANIMATOR

At King, we put players at the heart of everything we do. We’re looking for a passionate Principal Animator who thrives on bringing characters, worlds, and gameplay moments to life through expressive, high-quality animation. You’ll collaborate closely with a cross-functional team of artists, designers, and engineers to craft memorable experiences that delight millions of players worldwide. As a creative leader, you’ll help define animation standards, mentor others, and elevate the overall visual storytelling of our games. Balancing artistic excellence with performance and business goals. If you’re excited by the challenge of shaping the feel and personality of free-to-play mobile games for a global audience, this is the role for you.

Responsibilities

• Collaborate with Art, Design, and Engineering to deliver high-quality animation aligned with game vision and player experience.
• Lead the creation of polished, expressive, and performant animations for characters, gameplay, and UI across a variety of features.
• Establish and uphold animation standards, pipelines, and best practices, ensuring consistency, scalability, and technical excellence across the project.
• Partner with Tech Art and Engineering to ensure efficient implementation and mobile performance optimization.
• Provide creative direction, feedback, and mentorship, elevating craft quality across the team.
• Drive opportunities to enhance gameplay feel, readability, and emotional impact through animation, proactively proposing solutions that strengthen the player experience.
• Stay informed about animation trends, emerging tools, and industry best practices to ensure our visual storytelling remains innovative, fresh, and competitive.
  
  

Skills & Qualifications

• Extensive experience as an Animator in games or interactive media, with a strong portfolio showcasing expressive and high-quality work.
• Deep understanding of animation principles and how motion serves to gameplay clarity and smoothiness. Balancing creativity with functionality.
• Strong experience with 2D tools such as Spine (or similar), optimized for mobile platforms.
• Experience animating UI and player feedback moments, with a solid grasp of motion timing, readability, and how animation enhances user experience.
• Solid knowledge of implementation workflows in Unity (or similar engine), including performance and optimization considerations.
• Experience with VFX/particle systems and basic rigging fundamentals.
• Comfortable working across cartoony, casual, and mid-core styles, with the ability to adapt tone and motion language to different audiences and game contexts..
• Strong communication skills, with experience mentoring and giving constructive feedback.
• Proactive mindset and passion for craft excellence and continuous learning.
  
  

Nice to have:

• Experience with After Effects (or similar) for motion concepts.
• Experience with 3D animation workflows and tools.
• Experience working on Live Games environments.
  
  

A portfolio demonstrating all aspects of your skill is required.

About King

With a mission of Making the World Playful, King is a leading interactive entertainment company with more than 20 years of history of delivering some of the world’s most iconic games in the mobile gaming industry, including the world-famous Candy Crush franchise, as well as other mobile game hits such as Farm Heroes Saga. King games are played by more than 200 million monthly active users. King, part of Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT), has Kingsters in Stockholm, Malmö, London, Barcelona, Berlin, Dublin, San Francisco, New York, Los Angeles and Malta. More information can be found at King.com or by following us on LinkedIn, @lifeatking on Instagram, or @king_games on X.