ILM USA hiring Lighting Artist, 2026

Festybay; San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 103,812 - 132,930; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Medical, dental, and vision benefits

Bonus and long-term incentive programs

Access to a comprehensive rewards package

Job summary

Industrial Light & Magic is seeking a Lighting Artist to enhance immersive experiences through expert lighting design. You will work closely with a talented team to create cinematic lighting setups and optimize real-time rendering for VR platforms.

The ideal candidate will have over 5 years of experience, a strong understanding of lighting principles, and proficiency in Unreal Engine or Unity. This position is based in San Francisco, California, offering a hiring range of $103,812 to $132,930 USD per year.

Qualifications

• 5+ years of experience in AAA game development or visual effects.
• Expertise in lighting design and technical artistry.
• Proficient with real-time rendering pipelines in Unreal Engine and Unity.

Responsibilities

• Design and implement cinematic lighting setups for environments and characters.
• Collaborate with artists to optimize materials and performance.
• Identify and resolve rendering issues in a production pipeline.

Skills

Lighting design

Technical artistry

Real-time rendering

Education

5+ years in Lighting Art or Technical Direction

Strong aesthetic command

Tools

Unreal Engine

Unity

Maya

Job description

Industrial Light & Magic (ILM) is seeking a highly talented, technically proficient Lighting Artist who reflects the innovative spirit, creative excellence, and passion for great storytelling that defines ILM.

In this role (Lighting Artist), you will combine your strong aesthetic eye with technical real-time rendering capabilities to bring out the absolute best in our immersive environments and characters. Working closely with the Department Supervisor of Lighting, Art Directors, and cross-discipline development teams, you will design, implement, and optimize real-time lighting setups and pipelines. The ideal candidate is an expert in balancing the cinematic beauty of a scene with the strict performance limitations of interactive, real-time engines and VR headsets.

Detail Specification

Job Title Lighting Artist (Interactive/Immersive)

Studio / Facility Industrial Light & Magic (ILM)

Location San Francisco, California, United States

Hiring Range $103,812 – $132,930 USD / Year

Primary Tech Stack Unreal Engine / Unity, PBR Shaders, Maya

Core Platforms Virtual Reality (VR), Augmented Reality (AR), Immersive Cinema

About Industrial Light & Magic (ILM)

Founded in 1975 by George Lucas, Industrial Light & Magic (ILM) is the premier visual effects facility in the world, setting the gold standard for cinematic storytelling and digital innovation for over three decades.

ILM’s Interactive Team advances this legacy of innovation by developing original, award-winning immersive experiences across virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR), and location-based entertainment platforms.

Blending best-in-class visuals, state-of-the-art spatial audio, and cinematic narrative, our team has delivered groundbreaking, award-winning projects such as What If…? – An Immersive Story, Vader Immortal: A Star Wars VR Series, and the Oscar-winning CARNE y ARENA. We continue to push the frontiers of real-time interactive technology and redefine how global audiences engage with stories.

1. Aesthetic Lighting Design & Implementation

• Scene Composition: Collaborate with Art Directors, Lighting Leads, and concept artwork to build mood-evoking, cinematic lighting setups for complex environments, hero characters, and interactive game assets.
• Real-Time Workflows: Leverage a deep understanding of lightmap baking, dynamic real-time lighting tools, image-based specular lighting (IBL), indirect light probes, and post-process volumes.
• Dynamic Sequencing: Partner with Level Designers to animate dynamic lighting, time-of-day changes, or cinematic lighting transitions using level blueprints or engine sequencer tools.

2. Cross-Department Optimization & Polishing

• Performance Synchronization: Work alongside environment, character, and VFX artists to ensure material shaders, textures, and geometry are fully optimized to meet both aesthetic targets and strict frame-rate benchmarks.
• Material Authoring: Develop, organize, and maintain clean, efficient, and physically-based materials using real-time node editors (e.g., Unreal Engine material editor).
• Bug Triage & Polish: Proactively identify, track, and fix rendering or lighting bugs inside an active production pipeline, bringing the final interactive project to an elite level of polish and optimization.

Requirements & Qualifications

Core Craft Profile

• Professional Footprint: 5+ years of production experience as a Lighting Artist or Lighting Technical Director (TD) within AAA game development, feature animation, or high-end visual effects (VFX).
• Artistic Foundations: Strong aesthetic command over color theory, cinematic staging, shadow composition, and real-world atmospheric behavior.
• Engine Proficiency: Hands-on production experience with Unreal Engine, Unity, or an equivalent modern real-time game engine, covering both dynamic and baked lighting pipelines.
• Shader & PBR Knowledge: In-depth understanding of Physically Based Rendering (PBR) pipelines, real-time shader implementations, subsurface scattering shaders, and the specific rendering limitations inherent to VR platforms.
• Production Ecosystem: Fluency working in Windows environments alongside industry-standard workload and version control management tools (e.g., JIRA, Perforce).

Bonus Points For:

• A strong background in traditional fine arts, professional photography, or cinematic film studies.
• Proficiency using GPU/CPU profiling tools to diagnose and resolve performance bottlenecks related to lighting and rendering.
• Familiarity with foundational 3D/VFX content creation applications: Maya, Substance Designer/Painter, Houdini, ZBrush, Mari, 3D Studio Max, Photoshop, or Nuke.

Compensation, Benefits & Work Structure

San Francisco Base Hiring Range: $103,812 to $132,930 USD per year

Note: Actual base pay offered is determined by internal equity, geographic region, job-related knowledge, skills, and overall production experience.

Total Rewards Package: In addition to base pay, a bonus and/or long-term incentive units may be included. Employees have access to a full range of medical, dental, vision, and financial benefits provided by The Walt Disney Company.

How to Apply

If you are eager to shape the future of immersive entertainment under the banner of ILM, please submit your application through the official Lucasfilm / Disney Careers Portal.

Submission Requirement: A comprehensive portfolio or showreel link—accompanied by a detailed text breakdown explaining your exact technical and artistic contributions to each section or shot is strictly required for consideration.