Lighting Artist / Technical Director - ILM San Francisco (Project Hire)

The Walt Disney Company; San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 104,000 - 133,000; Full time

Job summary

Industrial Light & Magic is seeking a Lighting Artist for its ILM Interactive team in San Francisco. You will design lighting setups for environments, characters and interactive assets, collaborating with Art Directors, Lighting Leads and production teams to push the boundaries of immersive storytelling.

The role requires 5+ years in AAA development or related fields, strong real‑time lighting and shader skills, and experience with Unreal or Unity. A portfolio is required to apply.

Qualifications

• 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 real‑time lighting tool sets including HDR IBL workflows.
• Experience with Unreal/Unity or equivalent game engine with dynamic/baked lighting.
• Shaders: in‑depth real‑time shader implementations and PBR pipelines.
• Fluency with Windows, JIRA, Perforce or equivalent tools.

Responsibilities

• Design lighting setups for environments, characters and interactive assets with Art Directors and leads.
• Collaborate to optimize lighting pipelines and workflows for performance and aesthetics.
• Triage, fix bugs, and ensure high polish from development to final render.
• Work with level designers to animate lighting transitions via blueprint/sequencer.
• Improve workflows and best practices across the lighting team.
• Maintain asset quality through shader/material work and real‑time rendering.
• Contribute to final project polish and delivery milestones.

Skills

Lighting TD/Artist

Aesthetic lighting

Unreal Engine

Unity

PBR pipelines

Shaders

Perforce

Maya

Substance Designer

Tools

Unreal Engine

Unity

JIRA

Perforce

Maya

Substance Designer

ZBrush

Nuke

Job description

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. Known for blending best‑in‑class visuals, sound and narrative, the team has delivered award‑winning projects such as What If…? – An Immersive Story, Vader Immortal: A Star Wars VR Series and the Oscar‑winning CARNE y ARENA. Our work continues to push the boundaries of immersive entertainment and redefine how audiences engage with story.

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 to combine artistic talent and technical ability. You would be working closely with the Department Supervisor of Lighting and development/production teams on the design and implementation of lighting setups and lighting 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 a deep understanding of lightmap baking, dynamic lighting tools, image based specular lighting, indirect light probes, post‑process volumes and real‑time rendering

• Work with environment, character and VFX artists in the lighting design to achieve the desired targets for aesthetics and performance through material shader and geometry work

• Partner with level designers to animate via level blueprint or sequencer dynamic lighting or transitions

• Actively participate in improving workflows, optimizations and best practices

• Identify, triage, and fix bugs as required working with engineering and relevant departments

• Take final project 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 tool sets 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 of shaders in VR, strong knowledge of PBR pipelines, and subsurface shaders

• Materials: experienced in the development, authoring & organization of efficient materials via the UE4 material editor

• Fluency in working 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

• Proficient with profiling tools to examine & diagnosis performance issues related to lighting

• Experience with one or more of the following: Maya, Unity, Substance Designer / Painter, Zbrush or Mudbox, Houdini, Mari, 3D StudioMax, Photoshop, Nuke

• Interest and capacity to work with proprietary toolsets

* A portfolio / reel submission - including a detailed breakdown of your work in each section - is required with all applications.

JoinILM

The hiring range for this position in San Francisco is $103,812 to $132,930 per year. The base pay actually offered will take into account internal equity and also may vary depending on the candidate’s geographic region, job‑related knowledge, skills, and experience among other factors. 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/or other benefits, dependent on the level and position offered.

Job ID: 10152348

Location: San Francisco,California

Job Posting Company: Industrial Light & Magic

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