Principal Technical Artist - Tools (Apex Legends)

Respawn Entertainment; Vancouver; On-site; CAD 141,400 - 204,400; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Vacation 3 weeks per year

Sick days 10 days per year

Top-up to EI/QPIP benefits

Extended health/dental/vision

Life Insurance

Disability Insurance

Retirement plan

Job summary

Respawn Entertainment in Vancouver is seeking a Principal Technical Artist to lead content creation workflows for the Apex Legends project. You will design, build, and maintain art pipelines and tools, driving adoption across teams and coordinating with engineering to deliver production-ready solutions.

The role emphasizes leadership, project management, and an ability to push initiatives to production while mentoring others in best practices and pipeline optimization.

Qualifications

• 8+ years of professional game development experience.
• Design and implement tools/workflows from upstream to runtime.
• Proficient in programming with Python, MEL, or C# and UI frameworks.
• Familiar with Autodesk Maya and Adobe CC.
• Interest in content creation workflows and innovation.
• Has built a large workflow/tool and shipped a title.

Responsibilities

• Meet with end-users regularly to discuss challenges and opportunities.
• Educate the team on how to leverage the system and set best practices.
• Build multi-disciplinary coalitions to drive solutions across boundaries.
• Design, build and maintain art pipelines and tools.
• Automate testing and validation of workflows.
• Optimize slow processes and procedures.
• Learn proprietary systems and make them accessible to others.
• Troubleshoot issues on the front line of problem solving.
• Help teams transition content to new workflows and automate adaptation.

Skills

Game dev experience

Tool development

Python/MEL/C#

Maya/Adobe CC

Content workflows

Workflow automation

Tools

Maya

Adobe CC

Job description

Description & Requirements

Electronic Arts creates next-level entertainment experiences that inspire players and fans around the world. Here, everyone is part of the story. Part of a community that connects across the globe. A place where creativity thrives, new perspectives are invited, and ideas matter. A team where everyone makes play happen.

Founded in 2010, Respawn was created with the philosophy that when talented people have creative freedom they’ll make extraordinary games that achieve the unexpected. Respawn Entertainment is the Academy Award‑winning studio behind critically acclaimed multi‑platform games Apex Legends, Titanfall, Titanfall 2, Star Wars™ Jedi: Fallen Order, Star Wars™ Jedi: Survivor, and Medal of Honor: Above and Beyond. As a collective of creative developers, we have launched some of the industry’s most critically and commercially successful games. We truly love what we do and want to share our passion with players worldwide.

We are looking for a Principal Technical Artist to join our Apex Legends team to help design and deliver future‑forward content creation workflows. As a Principal Technical Artist on the project, you will be working within the technical art team’s pipeline group specifically focused on the fielding of requests for new workflows from customers and then working with stakeholders and engineering to design, build, test and ultimately integrate solutions back into the wider art team that you then help support and maintain. Our ideal candidate is able to take on larger projects as they are not just an expert in their technical craft, but is an accomplished project manager who can pull together an initiative, drive its implementation, and carry it across the finish line into production leveraging the wider studio to have maximum impact.

Why Join Us?

• This role is an opportunity to participate on a future looking team focused on building for the long term health of our customers and game.
• As a principal you will drive a wide variety of initiatives that will touch every aspect of content creation.
• This role will have a significant impact on how we make our product - and as a result the wider team and our players.

Core Roles And Responsibilities

• Collaboration:
  • Meet with end‑users regularly to discuss challenges and identify opportunities.
  • Educate the team how to leverage and use the system, set best practices and encourage adoption.
  • Build and drive multi-disciplinary coalitions to go after solutions across organizational boundaries.
• Pipeline and Tool Development:
  • Design, build and maintain art pipelines, custom tools.
  • Automate the testing and validation of workflows.
  • Optimize slow processes and procedures.
• Technical Support
  • Learn proprietary systems and be able to make them accessible to others.
  • Troubleshoot unknown issues and be on the front line of problem solving sticky situations.
• Asset Management
  • Help teams transition content from old to newer workflows and when needed, automate adapting the content to meet new requirements.

Qualifications

• 8+ years of professional game development experience.
• Expertise in designing and implementing tools and workflows from upstream content creation applications all the way to runtime.
• High level of proficiency with programming in DCC (python, mel, C#) or similar languages and UI frameworks (Qt).
• Familiar with third party software we use to make content (Autodesk Maya, Adobe’s Creative Cloud suite).
• Interest in content creation workflows, techniques and innovation.
• Has built a large workflow/tool and supported it through the ship of a title (or season).

Pay Transparency - North America

Compensation and Benefits: The ranges listed below are what EA in good faith expects to pay applicants for this role in these locations at the time of this posting. If you reside in a different location, a recruiter will advise on the applicable range and benefits. Pay offered will be determined based on a number of relevant business and candidate factors (e.g. education, qualifications, certifications, experience, skills, geographic location, or business needs).

• British Columbia (depending on location e.g. Vancouver vs. Victoria) *$141,400 - $204,400 CAD
• California (depending on location e.g. Los Angeles vs. San Francisco) *$165,000 - $256,000 USD

In the US, we offer a package of benefits including paid time off (3 weeks per year to start), 80 hours per year of sick time, 16 paid company holidays per year, 10 weeks paid time off to bond with baby, medical/dental/vision insurance, life insurance, disability insurance, and 401(k) to regular full‑time employees. Certain roles may also be eligible for bonus and equity.

For Canada, we offer a package of benefits including vacation (3 weeks per year to start), 10 days per year of sick time, paid top‑up to EI/QPIP benefits up to 100% of base salary when you welcome a new child (12 weeks for maternity, and 4 weeks for parental/adoption leave), extended health/dental/vision coverage, life insurance, disability insurance, retirement plan to regular full‑time employees. Certain roles may also be eligible for bonus and equity.

Equal Opportunity Employment

Electronic Arts is an equal opportunity employer. All employment decisions are made without regard to race, color, national origin, ancestry, sex, gender, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, age, genetic information, religion, disability, medical condition, pregnancy, marital status, family status, veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by law. We will also consider employment qualified applicants with criminal records in accordance with applicable law. EA also makes workplace accommodations for qualified individuals with disabilities as required by applicable law.