Associate Art Director

Jagex Ltd.; Cambridge; Hybrid; GBP 60,000 - 80,000; Full time

Job summary

A leading online game developer is looking for an Associate Art Director in Cambridge, UK. The role involves shaping the visual identity of a new open-world game. Candidates should have extensive experience in game development, strong leadership skills, and a portfolio demonstrating Art Direction capability. This position allows for remote work within the UK and offers excellent benefits.

Benefits

Private healthcare

Minimum 6% pension contributions

Employee Assistance Programme

Discretionary annual performance bonus

Enhanced family leave policies

Flexible working hours

25 days annual leave plus bank holidays

Qualifications

• A portfolio demonstrating Art Direction capability.
• Extensive end-to-end game development experience to AAA standard.
• Strong leadership skills with an inspirational lead-by-example approach.

Responsibilities

• Define and maintain a strong artistic vision for the game.
• Ensure consistency and excellence across art assets.
• Mentor and guide lead artists in various disciplines.

Skills

Art Direction capability

Game development experience

Communication of artistic vision

Leadership skills

Mentoring in artistic disciplines

Job description

Overview

Location: Cambridge, UK - Remote available within the UK with team onsite days in the Cambridge office approx. 4 times per year. Are you an experienced, creative game art leader with a proven track record of setting art direction, leading teams to create beautiful art and upholding quality across multiple art disciplines? As Associate Art Director on RuneScape: Dragonwilds, our new open world survival crafting game, currently in early access and developed in UE5, you\'ll play a key role in shaping the visual identity of the game, ensuring consistency, quality, and creativity across internal and external art assets. You\'ll work in close partnership with the Art Director, supporting the development of a cohesive vision while leading the art team with hands-on feedback, technical understanding, and inspirational direction. This is an exciting opportunity to influence the future of RuneScape: Dragonwilds while building on your leadership experience with a talented collaborative team.

Responsibilities

• Work closely with the Art Director and Executive Producer to define and maintain a strong artistic vision that aligns with game design, product direction, and marketing strategy.
• Own the visual quality bar for all internal and external art assets, ensuring consistency and excellence across disciplines.
• Create and contribute to style guides and visual documentation to communicate vision across the team.
• Run regular feedback sessions for both internal and external teams, delivering clear and actionable direction to elevate asset quality.
• Guide best practices in pipelines and workflows, championing efficient, scalable game art development processes.
• Collaborate with production to scope and schedule art deliverables across all asset types.
• Directly mentor and guide lead artists, helping to build capabilities across environment, character, concept, UI, VFX, and animation disciplines.
• Take an active role in recruitment, helping to shape a growing team through identifying and interviewing new talent.
• Engage in studio-wide initiatives, contributing to studio culture, cross-team collaboration, and company-wide creative evolution.

Qualifications

• A portfolio demonstrating Art Direction capability (Style/Production guides, paint-overs, etc.).
• Extensive end-to-end game development experience from concept, production through to live game on PC or Console to AAA standard.
• Proven experience communicating and propagating an artistic vision to teams, stakeholders and externally as required.
• Competent with strategies in growing, developing and managing multidisciplinary art and animation teams on a live game.
• Comfortable documenting and presenting current industry best practices to art and animation teams, critiquing problematic assets and workflows.
• Practical hands-on mentoring capability in at least two of the following areas: environment art, character art, concept art, UI, VFX, lighting or animation.
• Working knowledge of modern game development workflows across all major artistic disciplines.
• Able to show a solid understanding of art fundamentals: anatomy, composition, lighting/value, form/function and perspective.
• Strong leadership skills with an inspirational lead-by-example approach that unleashes potential in others.
• Ability to bring a competitive edge to the studio through Art Direction.

Company and Values

Jagex is a leader in developing and publishing deep, engaging online games that connect millions of players worldwide. We strive to foster an inclusive workplace built on trust, autonomy, and a shared passion for creating forever games. Our values guide everything we do: We Embrace Fellowship, We Hone our Craft, We Honour our Vows, We are our Customers\' Heroes, and We Seize The Day. With over two decades of experience and a team of over 400, we continue to innovate in live game development, leveraging data-driven insights and a commitment to player-first game design.

Benefits

• Private healthcare, including dental plan.
• Minimum 6% pension contributions.
• Employee Assistance Programme & onsite counselling.
• Life insurance.
• Discretionary annual performance bonus.
• Enhanced family leave policies from day 1.
• Flexible working hours.
• 25 days annual leave + bank holidays and the option to buy/sell holidays.