Senior Materials Artist: Apex Legends (PBR & Live Ops)

Respawn Entertainment; Madison (WI); On-site; USD 153,700 - 233,600; Full time

Job summary

Respawn Entertainment is seeking a senior-level materials specialist to shape next‑generation surface workflows for a AAA game portfolio. You will co‑develop surfacing strategies with rendering and technical art teams, curate a shared material library, and design layered materials to meet complex interactions.

Strong shader and tool proficiency are essential. Ideal candidates will have 12+ years in game development, a robust portfolio of PBR materials, and experience delivering AAA scale

Qualifications

• 12+ years of professional game development experience.
• Portfolio demonstrating a wide range of high quality materials and a mastery of PBR.
• Expert level knowledge of Substance Painter and Designer.
• Direct production experience building shared material libraries that have been brought to market at a AAA scale and quality.
• Experience in live service titles, seasonal content, cosmetics, or character customization systems is a plus.
• Experience collaborating with technical disciplines on standing up new pipelines.
• Capability to author materials or shaders as proof of concept or visual targets is a plus.
• Comfortable working with proprietary technology that ships on a wide range of platforms with performance as a top priority.
• Strong ability to clearly communicate, both verbally and in writing, create documentation, training materials, or mentoring junior artists.

Responsibilities

• Co‑develop new surfacing strategies and pipelines in collaboration with rendering, technical art, and craft experts.
• Build, curate, and maintain a high quality shared material library.
• Help design material systems or layered materials with an understanding of complex surface interactions.
• Contribute to tools and pipelines leveraging subject matter expertise in Substance Painter/Designer, Houdini Copernicus, or other related DCC tools.
• Be a champion for technology that meets high performance expectations and technical constraints.
• Help test and validate new rendering and lighting features.
• Build partnerships and collaborative efforts between multiple disciplines to achieve successful solutions.

Skills

12+ years game development

PBR mastery

Shader authoring

Cross-disciplinary collaboration

Documentation & mentoring

Tools

Substance Painter

Substance Designer

Houdini Copernicus

Job description

Respawn Entertainment is seeking a senior-level materials specialist to shape next‑generation surface workflows for a AAA game portfolio. You will co‑develop surfacing strategies with rendering and technical art teams, curate a shared material library, and design layered materials to meet complex interactions.

Strong shader and tool proficiency are essential. Ideal candidates will have 12+ years in game development, a robust portfolio of PBR materials, and experience delivering AAA scale