Studio Art Manager

About the role

Reporting to the CEO, this role will oversee a team of approximately 30+ artists working under a structured hierarchy of senior people managers ensuring the department delivers exceptional quality across all projects while cultivating a strong culture of feedback, development, and creative excellence.

Responsibilities

• Leadership & Mentorship
  • Lead and coach senior people managers, ensuring they in turn mentor leads with clarity and consistency
  • Identify and lead departmental upskilling initiatives, such as targeted software workshops, mentorship programs, and peer review frameworks, to improve artistic quality, workflow efficiency, and cross-discipline collaboration
  • Champion career development frameworks, succession planning, and skill-building initiatives to strengthen the internal talent pipeline
  • Setting job expectations for disciplines at every stage; from job postings, hiring, onboarding, year-end reviews, while ensuring clarity and consistency across people leaders
• Strategic & Operational Impact
  • Partner with Studio Leadership and Production to define the long-term art vision, standards, and goals for both locations
  • Oversee art resource planning and headcount allocation across all active projects, balancing creative ambitions with production needs
  • Partnering with Human Resources and Production to foresee hiring needs based on current and future project needs as well as recruiting, internships, outsourcing, external outreach, and external developer relationships
• Creative Direction & Quality
  • Collaborate closely with Game Directors, Art Directors, and department leads to uphold the studio's visual identity and artistic direction
  • Support creative problem-solving and ensure alignment between creative goals and practical production realities
• Culture & Collaboration
  • Serve as a cultural leader across both locations, building trust, alignment, and shared artistic standards
  • Promote strong communication channels across teams and studios to ensure consistency and cohesion in the art organization
  • Model empathy, inclusion, and leadership transparency as cornerstones of team culture

Requirements

• 10+ years of experience in game art leadership or related creative leadership roles
• Experience managing multi-level hierarchies within a production environment, with a total team size of 50+ artists
• Proven ability to balance creative excellence with operational decision-making
• Strong understanding of art production pipelines, tools, and resource planning
• Exceptional communication and interpersonal skills; able to inspire, influence, and develop others
• Has shipped multiple games in an art-focused role: concept, character, environment, illustration, world-building, etc.
• Experience using Unity, Unreal, or proprietary engines, software, and tools
• Experience with modern workflows and knowledge of the entire lifecycle of a project, for current AAA games both large and small
• Excellent collaboration and both written and verbal communication skills

Pay & Schedule

• This is a hybrid or onsite position. Hybrid is 3 days a week in studio
• Our studio is located in Troy, NY
• Specialist: $100,000 - $140,000 USD per year
• Principal: $125,000 - $165,000 USD per year
• Please note that the actual base pay may vary based on factors such as your qualifications, skills, experience, and other relevant considerations