Principal Technical Artist

Hidden Levels; North Township (IN); On-site; USD 110,000 - 160,000; Full time

Job summary

Hidden Levels seeks a Principal Technical Artist to bridge art and technology across our studio, shaping how visuals come to life and how teams collaborate.

You will lead the technical art team, establish pipelines and workflows, troubleshoot issues, and work closely with artists and engineers to maximize performance and fidelity.

Ideal candidates have 10+ years in game development with AAA titles, deep knowledge of Maya, Unreal Engine, Houdini, Substance Designer, and Python/C# scripting.

Qualifications

• 10+ years in game development with 2 shipped AAA titles.
• Expert in 2D/3D art tools (Maya, Photoshop).
• Experience with environment authoring tools (Houdini, Unreal PCG, SpeedTree, Substance Designer).
• Proficient in setting content budgets, asset optimization, and pipeline tooling.

Responsibilities

• Oversee technical art production and pipelines.
• Lead and mentor the technical art team.
• Collaborate with artists and engineers to deliver visuals.
• Establish best-practice pipelines and budgets.
• Communicate across disciplines and track issues.

Skills

10+ years in game development

AAA titles shipped

leadership / mentoring

communication across disciplines

problem solving

Education

Bachelor's degree in art/CG or related field

Tools

Maya

Photoshop

Houdini

Unreal Engine

Substance Designer

SpeedTree

Python

C#

HLSL

Job description

About The Studio

The opportunity of a lifetime! Join an exciting, newly-formed studio that is comprised of industry veterans responsible for one of gaming’s most acclaimed video game series ever. Harbouring an inclusive, diverse development environment in one of Canada’s most prominent gaming hubs, this new gathering of minds will surely take the industry by storm in the coming years.

Ready to make history in gaming?

Responsibilities And Requirements

Our client seeks an experienced Principal Technical Artist to join their team and play a crucial role in bridging the gap between art and technology. In this role, you will be responsible for overseeing the technical aspects of art production, optimising workflows, and ensuring the artistic vision is realised through efficient and effective technical solutions. Your expertise will be essential in guiding the technical art team and collaborating closely with artists and engineers to develop innovative solutions that enhance our games' visual fidelity and performance.

This position is ideal for someone who possesses a strong technical background in game development, a deep understanding of art pipelines, and a passion for leading and mentoring a team.

• Effective at communicating with different disciplines and levels across the organisation
• Work closely with Environments, Characters, VFX, Lighting, Rendering, and other content teams to build new tools and pipelines
• Being a solutions provider, particularly as it pertains to debugging technical issues
• Establish Art Pipelines and Workflow best practices
• Act as a liaison between the programming and art teams to make sure artists understand all technical guidance
• Track issues, prioritise needs, and report bugs as needed

About You

• 10+ years of Game Development experience and at least two shipped AAA titles
• Expert knowledge of 2D and 3D Art packages, including Maya and Photoshop
• Experienced with environment authoring tools such as terrain generation, procedural generation (Houdini, Unreal PCG), speed tree as well as Substance Designer
• Can demonstrate high-quality contributions towards atmospherics, complex terrain, post-process and camera-based effects
• Curious, collaborative and an independent problem-solver.
• Prior experience with PBR shading, modelling and texturing on a AAA console title as well as Unreal/Maya shading graphs or HLSL
• Proficient scripting/programming skills in Python and C#. (C++ is a bonus, but not required).
• A willingness to jump into the unknown and solve new problems; the ability to think creatively to resolve technical challenges and limitations.
• Experience with setting content budgets, asset optimization, platform challenges and best practices/techniques in this area.
• Familiarity with Unreal Engine tools and pipelines including Blueprints