Technical Artist - XR Rapid Prototyping

Nexus Studios; United Kingdom; Remote; GBP 40,000 - 60,000; Full time

Job summary

Nexus Studios seeks a Technical Artist to join a compact prototyping team. You'll craft shaders and real-time VFX for immersive demos, ensuring visual fidelity and performance during rapid development cycles. Ideal candidates have strong experience in Unity and a passion for visual design.

Qualifications

• 5+ years of experience as a Technical Artist.
• Expert-level experience with Unity and VFX systems.
• Strong skills in HLSL and GLSL shader development.

Responsibilities

• Drive the visual fidelity of immersive demos through real-time shaders.
• Collaborate with creative stakeholders to implement visual concepts.
• Optimize graphics systems for performance on XR devices.

Skills

Shader Development

Real-time VFX

Creative Problem-Solving

Collaboration

Graphics Optimization

Tools

Unity

HLSL

GLSL

Blender

Houdini

Job description

Location: Remote - able to work 10am - 7pm UK time

Type: 5-6 months initial contract

Start Date: July 2025

Nexus Studios is a global creative studio working with award-winning directors across animation, artful live-action and immersive to redefine the boundaries of entertainment. Our work has received accolades from BAFTA, Emmy, Grammy, Academy Awards to name a few. We work with the world's leading cultural brands and have a deep rooted history in innovation, XR and crafted storytelling.

The Role:

We are forming a compact, agile prototyping team tasked with developing a series of short-cycle, highly visual immersive demos. These are designed to excite and inspire future partners and audiences—conceptually bold, technically inventive, and visually polished.

As Technical Artist, you'll bridge the gap between art and code—crafting shaders, real-time VFX, and creative tools that push the aesthetic fidelity of our prototypes. You'll work closely with a Tech Lead and Senior Developer to ensure that visual ambition meets real-time performance, all within fast-moving creative sprints.

You should be as excited by pixel-perfect polish as you are by pipeline problem-solving. This is a rare opportunity to define the visual signature of next-generation immersive experiences.

Requirements


What You'll Do:

• Drive the visual fidelity of immersive demos by creating real-time shaders, visual effects, and motion systems
• Develop custom HLSL and GLSL shaders for use across native platforms and real-time engines
• Contribute to rapid look-dev efforts, asset implementation, and visual prototyping in Unity and porting them to GLSL for native Android pipelines
• Collaborate with creative stakeholders to bring concept art, motion studies, and animation ideas into real-time execution
• Optimize art and graphics systems for performance on XR devices while retaining creative intent
• Build or adapt in-editor tools and visual pipelines to support fast iteration across the demo team
• Identify visual opportunities and contribute creatively to the aesthetic direction of each prototype.
  
  
  

What You Will Bring:

• 5+ years of experience as a Technical Artist in games, XR, real-time graphics, or immersive installations
• Expert-level experience with Unity, including asset workflows, scripting, and VFX systems
• Strong shader development skills in both HLSL (Unity) and GLSL (native pipeline)
• A sharp eye for motion, lighting, material response, and visual design fundamentals
• Experience integrating and optimizing real-time assets under performance constraints
• A collaborative mindset with a passion for solving creative-technical challenges
• Comfort working in a highly experimental, rapid-prototyping environment.
  
  
  

Preferred Experience:

• Experience working across both native and engine-based pipelines
• Familiarity with AR/VR/XR development or spatial computing SDKs
• Prior work in experiential design, or visual R&D teams
• Understanding of PBR workflows and mobile GPU performance tradeoffs
• Scripting skills (e.g., C#, Python) for tool-building or workflow automation and working with Blender/Houdini pipelines
  
  
  

Benefits

This is a Nexus-led role designed for creative technologists with a visual bias—those who love using code to make things beautiful and surprising in real time. You'll help define how the future looks and feels. If you love making immersive visuals come alive—and doing so quickly, collaboratively, and beautifully—let's talk.

Nexus Studios is proud to work with extraordinary talent as an equal opportunity employer. We embrace individuals of all backgrounds regardless of gender, race, age, abilities or sexual preferences. Our recruitment process is merit-based, ensuring fair treatment to every applicant.

Seniority level

• Seniority level

  Mid-Senior level

Employment type

• Employment type

  Contract

Job function

• Job function

  Art/Creative

• Industries

  IT Services and IT Consulting

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