Lead Technical Artist

About The Studio

The opportunity of a lifetime! Join an exciting, newly-formed studio that is comprised of industry veterans responsible for one of gaming’s most acclaimed video game series ever. Harbouring an inclusive, diverse development environment in one of Canada’s most prominent gaming hubs, this new gathering of minds will surely take the industry by storm in the coming years. Ready to make history in gaming?

Responsibilities

• Lead and mentor a team of technical artists (both internal and co-dev), setting goals and ensuring high-quality technical solutions align with project timelines and artistic vision.
• Develop and optimise art pipelines and workflows, identifying bottlenecks and implementing improvements.
• Collaborate with artists and engineers to develop and integrate tools and technologies that enhance the visual quality and efficiency of asset creation.
• Drive the research and implementation of new techniques and technologies to push the visual boundaries of our games.
• Establish best practices and standards for the technical art team, ensuring consistency and quality across projects.
• Troubleshoot complex technical issues and provide support to the art team.
• Actively participate in the creative process, providing technical guidance to ensure feasibility without compromising artistic goals.
• Effective at communicating with different disciplines and levels across the organisation.
• Work closely with Environments, Characters, VFX, Lighting, Rendering, and other content teams to build new tools and pipelines.
• Track issues, prioritise needs, and report bugs as needed.

Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Digital Arts, or a related field.
• 10+ years of game development experience, at least two shipped AAA titles and 3+ years in a leadership role.
• Strong leadership skills, with a track record of successfully mentoring and developing talent.
• Exceptional communication and collaboration skills, capable of working closely with diverse teams.
• Proficiency in industry-standard software like Maya, 3DS Max, Blender, and game engines such as Unreal Engine or Unity.
• Solid understanding of art and animation pipelines in game development.
• Prior experience with PBR shading, modelling and texturing on a AAA console title as well as Unreal/Maya shading graphs or HLSL.
• Excellent problem-solving abilities and a proactive approach to overcoming challenges.
• Experience with setting content budgets, asset optimization, platform challenges and best practices/techniques in this area.
• Proficient scripting/programming skills in Python and C#. (C++ is a bonus, but not required).
• A portfolio demonstrating a history of successful projects and technical innovation.

Desirable Bonus Skills

• Familiarity with Houdini, Unreal PCG or other procedural content creation tools.
• Experienced with environment authoring tools such as terrain generation, speed tree as well as Substance Designer.
• Familiarity with Unreal Engine tools and pipelines including Blueprints.