Real-Time 3D Technical Artist

TechDigital Group; Hoboken (NJ); On-site; USD 85,000 - 125,000; Full time

Job summary

TechDigital Group in Hoboken, NJ is seeking a Real-Time 3D Technical Artist to elevate browser-based science lab visuals using Three.js / WebGL. You will own the real-time art and shader-driven effects, ensuring glass, metal, and fluids read believably on Chromebook-class hardware.

Collaborate with engineers to integrate assets into a React Three Fiber stack, optimize performance, and deliver addressable parts (e.g., microscope nosepiece, knobs, and stage) with careful attention to proportions

Qualifications

• Shipped real-time 3D in the browser with Three.js / WebGL.
• Expert in PBR materials and lighting for transparent/metallic substances.
• Experience with glTF / GLB asset pipelines and optimization.
• Strong real-time performance discipline for low-end hardware.
• GLSL shader ability for materials and effects.

Responsibilities

• Own the real-time 3D art and technical-art layer and shaders for the browser-based lab.
• Collaborate with engineers to integrate assets into a React Three Fiber codebase.
• Model, source, and optimize lab equipment as clean glTF/GLB assets.
• Write and modify GLSL shaders for the described effects.
• Maintain performance budgets on Chromebook-class hardware.

Skills

Three.js / WebGL

PBR materials

glTF / GLB

Real-time performance

GLSL shader development

Real-time VFX / particles

JSX / React Three Fiber

Tools

Blender

Job description

Real-Time 3D Technical Artist (Three.js / WebGL) Browser-based science lab simulation

About the project

We are building a browser-based 3D virtual science lab where students assemble apparatus, perform experiments, and are assessed on their technique, all rendered in real time with Three.js / React Three Fiber. The simulation runs on ordinary school hardware, including low-end Chromebooks, and must look convincing while staying fast and deterministic.

We have a working simulation engine and physics. What we need is someone to raise the visual fidelity of the equipment and effects from "recognizable" to "believable" (i.e. real glassware, real metal instruments, real fluid behavior) within a strict real-time budget.

What you'll work on

You will own the real-time 3D art and technical-art layer, including:

• Modeling, sourcing, and optimizing lab equipment (microscopes, glassware, burners, centrifuges, condensers, and more) as clean, correctly structured glTF/GLB assets that drop into our existing loader and wire to our interaction code.
• Authoring PBR materials and lighting so glass reads as glass, steel as steel, and fluids as translucent, refractive liquid, not as colored plastic.
• Building and tuning real-time effects: pouring fluid streams with splash and ripples, vapor and steam, Bunsen flames, heat shimmer, condensation.
• Writing and modifying GLSL shaders for the effects above.
• Keeping everything within a Chromebook-class performance budget (triangle counts, texture memory, draw calls, frame time) without sacrificing the look.
• Collaborating with our engineers so your assets and effects integrate cleanly into a React Three Fiber codebase, with parts named and structured for interaction (e.g. a microscope's nosepiece, focus knobs, and stage must be individually addressable).

Required skills and experience

These are non-negotiable:

• Shipped real-time 3D in the browser with Three.js / WebGL.We need production work that runs in a browser — not offline renders, not Unity/Unreal-only experience. You will be asked to show interactive, in-browser examples.
• PBR material authoring — deep, practical command of metalness/roughness workflows, environment maps / image-based lighting, and transmission/refraction for transparent materials like glass and liquid.
• glTF / GLB asset pipeline— modeling or sourcing (Blender or equivalent), optimization (decimation, LOD, texture atlasing), and clean export with a sane node hierarchy and naming that downstream code can bind to.
• Real-time performance discipline— you think in triangle budgets, texture memory, draw calls, and frame time as a matter of habit, and you optimize for low-end hardware, not just your own workstation.
• GLSL shader ability — you can write and modify shaders for materials and effects, not only wire up premade ones.
• Real-time VFX / particle systems — believable, cheap effects (fluids, smoke/vapor, flames, splashes).
• Enough code fluency to collaborate in our stack — you can read and lightly modify JSX / React Three Fiber, and you understand how your assets are consumed at runtime.

Strongly preferred

• Experience with React Three Fiber specifically (not just vanilla Three.js).
• A track record optimizing for constrained devices (mobile, Chromebooks, low-end GPUs).
• Scientific, technical, medical, or educational visualization experience — anywhere accuracy of the depicted object mattered as much as its beauty.
• Comfort taking real-world reference seriously and getting proportions and details right.