// Open Role at Dream Machine FX
Join ICON Creative Studio as a Technical Animator, contributing to top-tier CG animation for major streaming platforms by refining rigs, simulating cloth, and troubleshooting animation issues in a collaborative, supportive environment.
Based in the heart of Leamington Spa, Pixel Toys have spent over a decade pushing the capabilities of mobile and VR gaming. We have developed multiple award-winning titles, including: Warhammer 40,000: Freeblade, Warhammer Age of Sigmar: Realm War; and we’re now excited to be exclusively working on a new game, unlike ANYTHING we’ve done previously!
As a forward thinking and innovative studio we are always looking for new technologies and techniques to develop and use in our games and make them even more engaging experiences for our customers.
We are excited to continue to grow our team and are always on the lookout for highly talented and motivated individuals, who are passionate about gaming and excited to join us on our ambitious journey!
The Role:
As a Senior QA Engineer at Pixel Toys, you will lead our technical quality, stability, and performance efforts by combining hands-on testing with test automation and tooling expertise.
Working collaboratively across our production cycle, you will partner closely with Engineering, Production, DevOps, and Live Operations to establish comprehensive test strategies for new features. You will oversee functional, regression, exploratory, and risk-based testing, ensuring our builds meet strong standards of stability and playability before reaching our community.
A central focus of your role will be advancing our automated testing capabilities. You will design, expand, and maintain robust automated test suites following development best practices, turning manual test cases into efficient, repeatable workflows. Partnering directly with Engineering, you will integrate automated testing into our CI/CD pipelines, build custom utilities to enhance testing efficiency, and continuously refine test suites to ensure ongoing reliability across development branches.
In addition to core testing, you will guide performance tracking and live operations support, utilising profiling tools like GameBench to run regular performance tests, investigate regressions, and troubleshoot player-reported live issues. You will publish clear QA reports and dashboards that give production and studio leadership full visibility into defect trends and build health.
On top of this, you will act as a dedicated mentor, sharing knowledge and supporting Junior team members in automation, scripting, and testing best practices.
About you:
You will join us with experience in Games QA or Software QA, ideally with a focus on test automation. Experience working on mobile games is desirable.
We would love to see experience across some of the following areas:
What can Pixel Toys offer:
At Pixel Toys we are proud of the progressive, inclusive, and collaborative working environment we have created; a place where everyone has the opportunity to be themselves and is welcomed and valued for who they are and what they contribute. We have some fantastic benefits we offer our employees… Here are just some of them:
Recruitment selection is based on skills, experience and a good Pixel Toys mission and values fit.
- Work collaboratively with the animation team to meet project deadlines and shot quotas. - Efficiently perform fixes and simulations within the given timeframe. - Ability to follow technical and artistic direction provided by supervisors and leads. - Implement feedback and make adjustments to animations as required. - Identify and rectify geometry crashing and animation errors. - Enhance visual appeal and overall quality of animations through meticulous polishing. - Communicate effectively with supervisors, leads, and the Production team. - Collaborate with other departments to ensure seamless integration of animations into the overall project. - Foundational knowledge of Maya and general understanding of 3D environments. - Basic animation and modeling skills, demonstrated through coursework, personal projects, or a demo reel. - Introductory knowledge of Maya nCloth or other cloth-related simulation software. - Eagerness to learn and develop technical skills in rigging, dynamics, and pipeline tools. - Strong problem-solving mindset with a willingness to take initiative and ask questions. - Collaborative attitude and openness to feedback in a production environment. - 1-2 years of professional industry experience (for Intermediate role). - Intermediate knowledge of Maya nDynamics, including nCloth setups for varied scenarios. - Comfortable working with rig systems. - Cross-departmental experience in topology, weight painting, and caching. - Skilled in importing/exporting animation with tools such as Studio Library or PAIE. - Proficient with Maya constraints and deformers (native and pipeline-based). - Solid understanding of nucleus-based dynamics attributes. - Strong critical thinking skills and ability to take ownership of tasks. - Stay updated on industry trends and emerging technologies.