We're Hiring

Overview

ZeniMax Online is looking for a highly motivated Senior Animator with experience in Narrative Systems to collaborate with our talented team of creative professionals bringing the stories of our creatures and characters to life in an exciting new AAA Experience. Our teams are empowered to create, challenged to learn, and encouraged to lead. Harness your passion and creativity to develop genre-defining gameplay and interactive storytelling.

The preferred location for this role is Hunt Valley, MD, Austin, TX, or Madison, WI. Will consider remote.

Responsibilities

• Bring fantastical and realistic creatures and characters to life with high-quality keyframe and motion capture animation
• Collaborate with design and engineering and define new Narrative Gameplay systems
• Contribute to the creative process with original ideas and inspiration that will shape the players' experience
• Apply artistic vision to gameplay and in-game storytelling with designers and animators
• Building and using libraries of gestures and poses to create believable personas as well as custom actions and moments
• Participate in collaborating in motion capture shoots and crafting keyframe and motion capture performances
• Work directly with the character team to develop character and creature models with believable
  proportions and help define rigging, and other animation considerations
• Autonomous problem-solving in a dynamic environment

Qualifications

• 5+ years of professional experience as an animator for games or narrative systems
• Experience developing new gameplay mechanics from the ground up
• Understanding of cinematic systems development
• Ability to combine acting and action to bring personality and appeal to characters and monsters alike
• Understanding of animation pipelines and standard industry processes
• Possess technical knowledge/abilities with respect to the implementation of animation into a game engine
• Strong understanding of fundamental animation principles and the ability to clearly communicate those ideas to others
• Experience collaborating across all disciplines
• Must show an aptitude for learning new systems quickly
• Have extensive knowledge of 3D Studio Max, Maya, or Motion Builder

*Portfolio: Please include links to your work and clearly indicate your contributions. Resumes without work samples will not be considered.*

Preferred Skills

• A minimum of BFA with a major in Animation or equivalent experience, additional related education a plus
• Experience with motion capture and realistic human performance
• Training or experience with acting or combat
• Experience with Xsens mocap systems
• Excellent drawing or related traditional art skills demonstrated in a portfolio
• Have a deep understanding of anatomy and human kinetics, demonstrated through a working knowledge of martial arts, dance, or related experience

Salary Range

Senior Animator - The typical base pay range for this position at the start of employment is expected to be between $75,000 - $165,000 per year.

ZeniMax has different base pay ranges for different work locations within the United States, which allows us to pay employees competitively and consistently in different geographic markets. The range above reflects the potential base pay across the U.S. for this role; the applicable base pay range will depend on what ultimately is determined to be the candidate’s primary work location. Individual base pay depends on various factors, in addition to primary work location, such as complexity and responsibility of role, job duties/requirements, and relevant experience and skills. Base pay ranges are reviewed and typically updated each year. Offers are made within the base pay range applicable at the time.

At ZeniMax certain roles are eligible for additional rewards, such as merit increases and discretionary bonuses. These awards are allocated based on individual performance and are not guaranteed. Benefits/perks listed here may vary depending on the nature of employment with ZeniMax and the country work location. U.S.-based employees have access to healthcare benefits, a 401(k) plan and company match, short-term and long-term disability coverage, basic life insurance, wellbeing benefits, paid vacation time, paid sick and mental health time, and several paid holidays, among others.

This position is in a union and represented by the Communication Workers of America.

Overview

The Lead Systems Designer works with the project team to support the creation and maintenance of core game mechanics and non-combat systems.  They are responsible for core gameplay mechanics that have broad utility across all of gameplay and/or fantasy fulfillment/immersion features which retain players’ interest in the product and facilitate cooperative play between players, while adhering to team values and best practices.

The preferred location for this role is Hunt Valley, MD, Austin, TX, Madison, WI, San Diego, CA, or Seattle, WA. Will consider remote.

Responsibilities

• Oversee and direct the work of the Gameplay Systems Designers team
• Maintain numerous existing in-game systems as assigned (examples: Player Interactions with objects and NPCs, roleplaying features, non-combat skills, repeatable world activities, etc.)
• Develop expertise on all in-game systems behavior and interdependencies including proprietary toolsets
• Create and maintain documentation for new and existing systems
• Coordinate work initiatives and priorities across multiple feature teams
• Function effectively as a leader and/or team member in collaborative, cross-disciplinary feature development teams
• Utilize analytics to drive data informed decisions
• Provide, receive and integrate feedback on all aspects of game development
• Any other duties assigned

Qualifications

• 6+ years experience developing or maintaining systems in a shipped or live game
• At least 1 year of experience as a design lead and manager of at least 3 designers
• Experience developing and playing MMORPGs
• Proficient with Microsoft Excel and Microsoft Word, Miro, Powerpoint or equivalent
• Technical writing familiarity with close attention to detail
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills
• Familiarity with Agile development methodology and experience with Product Ownership a plus
• Viewable portfolio of previous work a plus

Salary Range

Lead Systems Designer - The typical base pay range for this position at the start of employment is expected to be between $90,000 - $200,000 per year.

ZeniMax has different base pay ranges for different work locations within the United States, which allows us to pay employees competitively and consistently in different geographic markets. The range above reflects the potential base pay across the U.S. for this role; the applicable base pay range will depend on what ultimately is determined to be the candidate’s primary work location. Individual base pay depends on various factors, in addition to primary work location, such as complexity and responsibility of role, job duties/requirements, and relevant experience and skills. Base pay ranges are reviewed and typically updated each year. Offers are made within the base pay range applicable at the time.

At ZeniMax certain roles are eligible for additional rewards, such as merit increases and discretionary bonuses. These awards are allocated based on individual performance and are not guaranteed. Benefits/perks listed here may vary depending on the nature of employment with ZeniMax and the country work location. U.S.-based employees have access to healthcare benefits, a 401(k) plan and company match, short-term and long-term disability coverage, basic life insurance, wellbeing benefits, paid vacation time, paid sick and mental health time, and several paid holidays, among others.

This position is in a union and represented by the Communication Workers of America.

Overview

ZeniMax Online Studios seeks an experienced DevOps Engineer to work in a team environment that will help build, automate, and monitor the infrastructure platform.

The preferred location for this role is Hunt Valley, MD, Austin, TX, Madison, WI, San Diego, CA, or Seattle, WA. Will consider remote.

Responsibilities

• Help create and support a reliable, secure, scalable environment to provide the best gaming experience for our end users
• Work closely with other engineering teams to better understand their software enabling you to adapt the platform to their needs
• Exemplify a passion for producing quality deliverables in a timely manner
• Work in a fast paced (Agile) environment, following a structured build and publishing process
• Comfortably and confidently work with and learn from an experienced team as a technology generalist (who may have demonstrated significant specialization in previous positions)

Qualifications

• 3+ years related experience
• Proficient with Python and/or Go
• Must possess experience in supporting mission critical live environments with:
  • Cloud Platforms: Experience with Azure, including compute, networking, storage, and IAM
  • Infrastructure as Code (IaC): Experience in Terraform (including modules, workspaces, and state management)
  • Linux System Administration: Deep knowledge of core services (BIND, Sendmail, Samba, Rsync, NTP, NFS)
  • Logging & Monitoring: Familiarity with syslog-ng, rsyslog, Splunk, and/or modern solutions like ELK/EFK, Prometheus, Grafana
  • Source Control & CI/CD: Proficient with Git (GitHub/GitLab/Bitbucket) and CI/CD tools such as TeamCity, Jenkins, GitHub Actions, GitLab CI
  • OS Packaging & Repositories: Experience creating and managing Debian (.deb) or RedHat (.rpm) packages and/or using Packer to create images in Azure
  • Databases: Familiarity with MySQL/MariaDB, with bonus points for NoSQL (e.g., Redis, MongoDB, DynamoDB)
  • Configuration Management: Experience with tools such as Chef, Ansible, or Puppet
  • Security & Compliance: Understanding of secure infrastructure practices, secrets management (e.g., Vault), and audit logging
• Must have some experience automating system tasks and monitoring infrastructure deployment using a scripting language (Python, Ruby, Bash)
• Must have prior experience in a 24/7 on call rotation supporting business critical applications or systems

Preferred Skills

• Experience with Nomad, Consul, or Kubernetes
• Docker/containerization experience
• Knowledge of Akamai CDN, PowerShell, vSphere/VMware
• Hobbyist programming background
• A passion for security tools and best practices: OS hardening, vulnerability scanning, system auditing
• Linux networking experience is a plus, this includes routing, NAT, VLAN, bridging in data center environments or cloud
• Prior experience with Cisco or Juniper network routers and switches

Salary Range

DevOps Engineer - The typical base pay range for this position at the start of employment is expected to be between $75,000 - $160,000 per year.

ZeniMax has different base pay ranges for different work locations within the United States, which allows us to pay employees competitively and consistently in different geographic markets. The range above reflects the potential base pay across the U.S. for this role; the applicable base pay range will depend on what ultimately is determined to be the candidate’s primary work location. Individual base pay depends on various factors, in addition to primary work location, such as complexity and responsibility of role, job duties/requirements, and relevant experience and skills. Base pay ranges are reviewed and typically updated each year. Offers are made within the base pay range applicable at the time.

At ZeniMax certain roles are eligible for additional rewards, such as merit increases and discretionary bonuses. These awards are allocated based on individual performance and are not guaranteed. Benefits/perks listed here may vary depending on the nature of employment with ZeniMax and the country work location. U.S.-based employees have access to healthcare benefits, a 401(k) plan and company match, short-term and long-term disability coverage, basic life insurance, wellbeing benefits, paid vacation time, paid sick and mental health time, and several paid holidays, among others.

This position is in a union and represented by the Communication Workers of America.

Overview

ZeniMax creates and publishes original interactive entertainment content for consoles, the PC, and mobile devices. Its Bethesda Softworks division, founded in 1986, has a long history of success as a publisher of award-winning video games. In addition, the ZeniMax group includes some of the most acclaimed development studios in the world. The company's growing library of intellectual properties includes such major franchises as The Elder Scrolls®, Fallout®, DOOM®, RAGE®, Wolfenstein®, Prey®, Dishonored®, The Evil Within®, and QUAKE®.

Responsibilities

We are always looking for talented individuals! Even if we do not have an open position for your skill set at this time, we are continuing to grow and build a pipeline of candidates with various qualifications in Art, Design, Programming and etc. 

Qualifications

If you would like to submit your resume, please click on the "Apply for this Job online" button and create a profile for our team to review. You can then import your resume along with any attachements sucha as a cover letter, writing samples, portfolio, and etc.

We will then keep your resume in our database and contact you if we have a new opening that meets your skill set.

Salary Range

ZeniMax has different base pay ranges for different work locations within the United States, which allows us to pay employees competitively and consistently in different geographic markets. The range above reflects the potential base pay across the U.S. for this role; the applicable base pay range will depend on what ultimately is determined to be the candidate’s primary work location. Individual base pay depends on various factors, in addition to primary work location, such as complexity and responsibility of role, job duties/requirements, and relevant experience and skills. Base pay ranges are reviewed and typically updated each year. Offers are made within the base pay range applicable at the time.

At ZeniMax certain roles are eligible for additional rewards, such as merit increases and discretionary bonuses. These awards are allocated based on individual performance and are not guaranteed. Benefits/perks listed here may vary depending on the nature of employment with ZeniMax and the country work location. U.S.-based employees have access to healthcare benefits, a 401(k) plan and company match, short-term and long-term disability coverage, basic life insurance, wellbeing benefits, paid vacation time, paid sick and mental health time, and several paid holidays, among others.