Technical Artist

At Velan Studios, we foster a culture of curiosity. Our games embrace diversity and are fueled by the adventurous spirit of our team. We are the creative minds behind titles like Mario Kart Live: Home Circuit, Knockout City, and Hot Wheels Rift Rally, and our journey continues! Our studio's mission is to pioneer groundbreaking gaming experiences and reimagine play in new ways. We're committed to pushing the boundaries of traditional gaming, blurring the lines between reality and fantasy, and revolutionizing the industry one game at a time.

About the Role

If you're half coder and half artist - you get both and can translate from art to tech and back again, so the entire development team gets the most out of the tools to build the next great game experiences of the future.

The ideal candidate is a highly technical visual artist with specific expertise in lighting, VFX, and materials. This individual will help create, shape, and lead the artistic direction with an innovative team of developers. This role collaborates closely with the Art Director, Game Designer, and other Studio Creative Leaders to define the look and feel of early-stage prototypes and experiment with different visual styles.

Responsibilities

• Be a team player and help guide artists as well as engineers, designers, and QA towards the best visuals for the project.
• Use your skills in various programs to help facilitate high quality and stylized optimized in-game assets.
• Understands how to be a sole Technical Artist on a project and to problem solve as needed.
• Help establish processes and pipelines and mentor other artists at the studio.
• Contribute to peer reviews, troubleshoot, problem solve, and give and receive constructive feedback.
• Mostly autonomous and able to self-direct tasks.
• Able to work on multiple projects at once and easily understands how to context switch.
• Help identify production bottlenecks and contribute to the internal art tools library both on a project level as well as at a studio level to help build efficient workflows.

Requirements

• 5+ years of game industry experience on console, mobile, handheld and/or PC platforms
• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Graphic Art or related field or equivalent experience preferred.
• Experience with physically-based rendering.
• Solid fundamentals: A strong understanding of light & color, shape, composition, and surface types.
• Expert in Maya, Substance, Adobe Creative Suite, etc.
• Advanced knowledge and experience in modern lighting techniques for real-time and offline graphics.
• Proficiency with shader development (node-based or HLSL/GLSL).
• Experience with visual scripting such as Blueprints in Unreal Engine.
• Experience working in Unreal, Unity or other AAA engines.
• Ability to collaborate with other artists, designers, and engineers.

Bonus Skills

• Modeling, texturing, character, environment, concept or illustration expertise.
• Experience with a scripting language such as Python.
• Experience profiling and optimizing shaders, vfx, geometry, etc.
• Prior Lead or Sub-Lead experience on a mid-sized or large console/PC/Handheld/VR or AR development projects.

We're thrilled that you're considering joining our team. We want to let you know that candidates who can work onsite in our Troy, NY studio are highly preferred. We believe that working together in person can foster better collaboration and creativity, and we're excited about the opportunity to have you right here with us. Velan Studios is made up of a team of remote, hybrid, and onsite employees, with hybrid and onsite team members operating from our Troy, NY office.

The salary for this position is typically within the range specified below* per year. Please note that the actual base pay may vary based on factors such as your qualifications, skills, experience, and other relevant considerations. In addition to your salary, our comprehensive compensation package includes various perks, such as potential annual bonuses (though they are not guaranteed), health, dental, vision, life, and disability insurance, a retirement savings plan, paid holidays, and flexible time-off benefits.

*$75,000.-$120,000.

Velan Studios is dedicated to building a diverse, inclusive, and authentic workplace, so if you are excited about a role but your experience doesn't align perfectly, we encourage you to submit a General Application. Velan Studios is an equal opportunity employer that is committed to inclusion, diversity, and providing a workplace free from discrimination and harassment. We seek to create a work culture that matches the diversity of our players.