Tech Art Intern- Undergraduate

Sony Interactive Entertainment Inc. (Japan); Burbank (CA); On-site; USD 43,000 - 58,000; Full time

Job summary

Insomniac Games in Burbank, CA, invites a Technical Artist Intern to design, develop, and optimize shaders within our content pipelines, helping environments and characters come to life.

You'll work with artists and programmers to create visual effects, maintain performance, and explore new techniques in real-time rendering and graphics optimization. This 12-week internship pays $36.50/hour and relocation assistance is available for eligible candidates.

Qualifications

• Pursuing a degree in Computer Science, Computer Graphics, or a related field.
• Strong foundation in shader programming and graphics concepts.
• Experience with real-time rendering and shader optimization is a plus.

Responsibilities

• Design and implement small-scale shaders to help asset teams develop game content.
• Collaborate with artists and programmers to craft technical solutions for production.
• Maintain and improve existing shaders for performance and visual quality.
• Debug and fix material graphs to resolve visual issues.
• Document implementation details to support workflows and collaboration.
• Create sample content to test workflows and demonstrate solutions.
• Explore new shader tech relevant to real-time rendering trends.

Skills

Shader programming

HLSL

Real-time rendering

3D math

Graphics pipelines

Unity

Unreal Engine

Debugging skills

Collaboration

PBR knowledge

Post-processing

Job description

Role Summary:

Join Insomniac Games and gain hands-on experience developing and optimizing shaders that help bring game environments and characters to life.

As a Technical Artist Intern, you'll combine technical programming skills and artistic creativity to design, develop, and improve shaders within Insomniac's content creation pipelines and processes. You'll work alongside artists and programmers to create visual effects while maintaining real-time rendering performance and efficient production workflows.

This internship offers practical experience in shader development, real-time rendering, and graphics optimization while strengthening your technical problem-solving skills and learning how technical art supports game development.

What You'll Be Doing:

• Design and implement small-scale shaders that help content creators (Environment Art, Character Team) develop game assets.

• Collaborate with artists and programmers to develop creative technical solutions that support game production.

• Maintain and improve existing shaders for various applications in the game environment, focusing on visual quality and rendering performance.

• Debug and fix materialgraphs to resolve visual and technical issues.

• Document technical implementation details to support development workflows and team collaboration.

• Develop sample content to test new workflows, evaluate tools, and demonstrate technical solutions.

• Explore technological developments in the game industry and learn how new techniques can support shader development and real-time rendering.

What We’re Looking For:

• Currently pursuing a degree in Computer Science, Computer Graphics, or a related field.

• Proficiency in shader programming languages such as HLSL.

• Experience with real-time rendering and graphics pipelines.

• Strong understanding of 3D math and algorithms related to computer graphics.

• Experience optimizing shaders for performance and quality.

• Familiarity with game engines such as Unity or Unreal Engine.

• Strong problem-solving and debugging skills, with the ability to identify and resolve visual issues.

• Strong communication and collaboration skills, with the ability to work effectively with artists and programmers.

• Knowledge of PBR (Physically Based Rendering) and post-processing effects.

• Interest in learning about emerging game development technologies and staying informed about industry trends.

Eligibility

• Students with expected graduation between May 2026 and December 2029 from an accredited university. Undergraduate

• Able to work during one of the following periods: May 17th - August 6th or June 14th - September 3rd. Relocation assistance is available for eligible candidates.

• Must be available for the entire 12-week internship period.

At this time, SIE will only consider applicants who are authorized to work for any employer in the United States and who will not require work visa sponsorship from SIE now or in the future to maintain their authorization to work in the United States.

Our intern positions offer a fixed hourly pay rate. Please note that the pay rate is exclusive to the internship period and may not reflect what pay may look like following the completion of an internship.

Intern Pay Range

$36.50 - $36.50 USD

At SIE, we consider several factors when setting each role's base pay range, including the competitive benchmarking data for the market and geographic location.

Please note that the base pay range may vary in line with our hybrid working policy and individual base pay will be determined based on job-related factors which may include knowledge, skills, experience, and location.

Please note, Sony Interactive Entertainment conducts background checks at the offer stage for all new employees (which may include criminal background checks for some roles) and will need to process personal information to support these checks.

Please refer to ourCandidate Privacy Noticefor more information about what personal information we collect, how we use it, who we share it with, and your data protection rights.