Senior Rendering Engineer

mobentertainment; United States; On-site; USD 135,000 - 184,000; Full time

Job summary

Mob Entertainment, the studio behind Poppy Playtime, seeks a Rendering Engineer to push visual fidelity in Unreal Engine 5. You’ll join Core Engineering to build, optimize, and maintain rendering systems and visual pipelines that define lighting, materials, and post-process effects.

You’ll collaborate with environment artists and tech leads on World Partition, GPU Lightmass, and Lumen decisions, profile performance, resolve rendering issues, and help enforce the studio’s fidelity standards

Qualifications

• 7+ years of professional experience as a rendering/graphics engineer with at least one shipped title using Unreal Engine.
• Strong C++ skills and deep understanding of Unreal's rendering pipeline (RDG, shader compilation, material system).
• Experience with HLSL shader authoring and debugging rendering issues using tools like RenderDoc or Unreal Insights.
• Practical experience with UE5 lighting systems - World Partition, GPU Lightmass, Lumen, and the tradeoffs between them.
• Ability to communicate rendering constraints and tradeoffs clearly to artists and designers.

Responsibilities

• Develop, extend, and optimize rendering features and shaders in Unreal Engine 5.
• Own lighting strategy decisions with environment art and lead engineering - including World Partition, GPU Lightmass, and Lumen tradeoffs.
• Profile and optimize GPU/CPU rendering performance against defined platform targets and fidelity standards.
• Diagnose and resolve rendering bugs, visual artifacts, and platform-specific rendering issues across target hardware.
• Build and maintain internal tooling to support artists and engineers working with rendering systems (profiling visualizers, lighting validation tools).
• Collaborate closely with technical artists on shader authoring standards, material complexity budgets, and visual fidelity guardrails.

Skills

Unreal Engine rendering

C++

Shader development

Performance profiling

Cross-team collaboration

GPU/CPU optimization

Tools

RenderDoc

Unreal Insights

Perforce

UGS/Horde

Job description

Mob Entertainment is a startup multimedia studio that is best known for our hit indie horror game " Poppy Playtime" . This franchise is one of the hottest new properties in gaming, and our team is naturally expanding as our ambition expands. To give a taste of our brand's popularity, more than 200 billion YouTube views of Poppy Playtime related content have occurred since the game's launch 6 years ago.

About the Role:

Atmosphere and visual fidelity are core to what makes our games work - and as we move into our most ambitious chapter yet, we're looking for a Rendering Engineer to help push the visual bar on Unreal Engine 5. As a Rendering Engineer, you'll work within Core Engineering to build, optimize, and maintain the rendering systems and visual pipelines that define the look and performance of our games. You'll partner with the Lead Engineer, technical artists, and lighting/environment artists to solve rendering problems specific to a dark, atmospheric horror title - from lighting strategy and World Partition workflows to shader work and platform performance targets. This role suits an engineer who's deeply comfortable in Unreal's rendering internals, enjoys the intersection of engineering and art, and wants ownership over how the game actually looks and runs.

What You'll Do:

• Develop, extend, and optimize rendering features and shaders in Unreal Engine 5 (materials, post-process, lighting, custom rendering passes)
• Own lighting strategy decisions in partnership with environment art and lead engineering - including World Partition, GPU Lightmass, and Lumen/baked lighting tradeoffs
• Profile and optimize GPU/CPU rendering performance against defined platform targets and fidelity standards
• Diagnose and resolve rendering bugs, visual artifacts, and platform-specific rendering issues across target hardware
• Build and maintain internal tooling to support artists and engineers working with rendering systems (profiling visualizers, lighting validation tools, etc.)
• Collaborate closely with technical artists on shader authoring standards, material complexity budgets, and visual fidelity guardrails
• Contribute to and help enforce the studio's performance/fidelity standards documentation
• Work within our Perforce/UGS/Horde pipeline, following team branching and Definition of Done standards
• Stay current on Unreal Engine rendering roadmap changes (Lumen, Nanite, Substrate, etc.) and evaluate their fit for our production needs

What We're Looking For:

• 7+ years of professional experience as a rendering/graphics engineer, with at least one shipped title using Unreal Engine
• Strong C++ skills and solid understanding of Unreal's rendering pipeline (RDG, shader compilation, material system, deferred rendering)
• Experience with HLSL/shader authoring and debugging rendering issues using tools like RenderDoc or Unreal Insights
• Practical experience with UE5 lighting systems - World Partition, GPU Lightmass, Lumen, and the tradeoffs between them
• Strong performance-profiling instincts and experience hitting platform-specific frame budgets
• Comfort working in a structured, multi-team pipeline (Perforce or similar) with defined branching and review processes
• Ability to communicate rendering constraints and tradeoffs clearly to artists and designers

Nice to Have:

• Experience with Nanite, Substrate, or other newer UE5 rendering features in a production setting
• Horror/atmospheric-genre experience, particularly with stylized or high-contrast lighting environments
• Experience building custom rendering tools or editor extensions
• Console platform rendering/certification experience
• Technical art background or close collaboration history with technical artists

What We Offer:

Direct influence over the visual identity of a flagship, high-visibility franchise

Close collaboration with engineering leadership and art direction on rendering strategy

A collaborative, low-ego engineering culture with strong senior/lead support

Competitive salary, benefits, and [PTO/health/etc. - fill in with studio specifics]

Salary Range:

San Francisco, CA; New York City, NY; Los Angeles, CA; Seattle, WA; Boston, MA; & Seattle, WA DC Metropolitan Areas: $152,000- $184,000 USD annually

Austin, TX; Denver, CO; Nashville, TN; Atlanta, GA; Chicago, IL; Dallas, TX; & Miami, FL Metropolitan Areas: $132,000- $160,000 USD annually

All Other U.S. Locations: $113,000 - $136,000 USD annually

Benefits:

Mob Entertainment offers the following benefits to all eligible U.S.-based full-time employees: profit sharing; medical, dental, and vision insurance; 401(k) matching; FSA/HSA; paid time off; sick time; holidays; and parental leave.