Lighting Artist / Technical Director - Expression of Interest - ILM San Francisco

The Walt Disney Company; San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 103,812 - 132,930; Full time

Job summary

The Walt Disney Company is seeking a Lighting Artist for Industrial Light & Magic in San Francisco. This role is an opportunity to express interest for future openings, focusing on designing and implementing lighting setups for immersive experiences.

The ideal candidate should have at least 5 years of experience in AAA game development or VFX and possess strong technical skills with lighting tools, a keen aesthetic sense, and experience with Unreal or Unity. Compensation ranges between $103,812 and $132,930 annually.

Qualifications

• 5+ years experience in AAA game development, animation, or VFX.
• Strong knowledge of real-time lighting tools and workflows.
• Ability to take direction effectively.

Responsibilities

• Design lighting setups for environments and characters.
• Collaborate with artists to achieve desired aesthetics.
• Improve workflows and optimize lighting processes.

Skills

Lighting TD/Artist experience

Aesthetic sense for lighting

Technical knowledge of lighting toolsets

Experience with Unreal/Unity

Fluency in Windows and project management tools

Communication and problem-solving skills

Tools

Unreal Engine

Unity

JIRA

Perforce

Photoshop

Job description

Lighting Artist / Technical Director – Expression of Interest – ILM San Francisco

Job ID 10152348 | Location San Francisco, California, United States | Business Industrial Light & Magic | Date posted May 26, 2026

Job Summary

This posting is an opportunity to submit your resume for future consideration. This role is not currently open; we anticipate it may be open in the future. If you would like to be considered, submit your resume. You may receive an email or call from a recruiter if and when the role becomes available.

Position Summary

ILM’s Interactive team advances the studio’s legacy of innovation by developing original immersive experiences across virtual reality, augmented reality, and location-based platforms. We are seeking a Lighting Artist who reflects the innovative spirit, creative talent, production excellence, and passion for great storytelling that defines ILM.

The Lighting Artist is responsible for bringing the best out of our environments and combining artistic talent and technical ability. You will work closely with the Department Supervisor of Lighting and development/production teams on design and implementation of lighting setups and pipelines.

What You’ll Do

• Work with Art Directors, Lighting Leads, and concept artwork to design lighting setups for environments, characters, and interactive game assets.
• Have deep understanding of lightmap baking, dynamic lighting tools, image-based specular lighting, indirect light probes, post-process volumes, and real-time rendering.
• Collaborate with environment, character, and VFX artists to achieve desired aesthetics and performance through material shader and geometry work.
• Partner with level designers to animate dynamic lighting or transitions via level blueprint or sequencer.
• Actively participate in improving workflows, optimizations, and best practices.
• Identify, triage, and fix bugs working with engineering and relevant departments.
• Take final projects to a high degree of polish and optimization.

What We’re Looking For

• 5+ years experience as a Lighting TD/Artist in AAA game development or animation/vfx/film.
• Strong aesthetic sense for lighting and color theory.
• Strong technical knowledge of current real-time lighting toolsets, including atmospheric effects, post-processing, color grading, and HDR IBL workflows.
• Able to effectively take direction and know what looks good and why.
• Experience with Unreal/Unity or equivalent game engine, including dynamic and baked lighting workflows, physically-based rendering, and basic level blueprint scripting.
• Shaders: in-depth knowledge of real-time shader implementations, limitations in VR, knowledge of PBR pipelines, and subsurface shaders.
• Materials: experienced in the development, authoring, and organization of efficient materials via the UE4 material editor.
• Fluency in Windows, JIRA, Perforce or equivalent OS, workload and data management tools.
• Excellent communication, organization, and problem-solving skills, and self-motivated.
• Bonus points for:
  • Strong traditional art, photography, or film studies background.
  • Proficiency with profiling tools for diagnosing performance issues related to lighting.
  • Experience with one or more of: Maya, Unity, Substance Designer/Painter, Zbrush or Mudbox, Houdini, Mari, 3D Studio Max, Photoshop, Nuke.
  • Interest and capacity to work with proprietary toolsets.

Compensation

The hiring range for this position in San Francisco is $103,812 to $132,930 per year. The base pay offered will take into account internal equity and may vary depending on the candidate’s geographic region, job-related knowledge, skills, and experience. A bonus and/or long-term incentive units may be provided as part of the compensation package, in addition to the full range of medical, financial, and other benefits.

EEO Statement

Lucasfilm Entertainment Company (LLC Payroll Svc), part of the Industrial Light & Magic, is an equal opportunity employer. Applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, religion, color, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, national origin, ancestry, age, marital status, military or veteran status, medical condition, genetic information, disability, or any other basis prohibited by federal, state, or local law.