Lead Technical Artist

As a Lead Technical Artist at Cloud Chamber you will join our talented development team to help shape the technical foundations of our artistic vision. You will be responsible for leading a dedicated technical team to build robust art pipelines and performance-driven systems. Utilizing your deep knowledge of Unreal Engine you will shape the technical efficiency of the art pipeline for our project ensuring that our ambitious art output is technically feasible and ultimately bringing the richly imagined world of BioShock to life.

What You’ll Do:

• Support the Tech Art Director’s technical vision and standards for the Art department ensuring that creative intent is translated into technically sound and performant reality.
• Must have experience creating and shipping AAA quality environments using Unreal 5 pipelines as a Principal or Lead technical artist.
• Establish and enforce the technical budgets for all art content to meet framerate and stability targets.
• Help design build and maintain the art production pipeline from content creation to engine integration.
• Take ownership of the most complex technical art challenges that cannot be solved by individual contributors.
• Serve as one of the key communication links between Art Engineering and Design aligning technical requirements asset constraints and engine capabilities.
• Identify workflow bottlenecks and problem solve with elegant solutions. 
• Proactively identify and resolve systemic high-impact performance bottlenecks within asset creation and rendering systems.
• Mentor and manage the Technical Art team and foster their professional growth.
• Ensure that all team members (including external partners) adhere to established technical standards naming conventions and workflow practices.

What We’ll Do Together:

At Cloud Chamber we are champions of high standards pushing for progress and embracing change. We will work closely and constructively across design art engineering animation and audio teams to realize our creative ambitions. Together we will stay current on technological advancements and identify solutions to overcome developmental obstacles.

In this leadership capacity you will support the Technical Art Director’s vision ensuring creative intent is translated into a performant reality while taking ownership of the most complex technical challenges that arise during production.

• Worked a minimum of 8+ years in game development with at least 3+ years in a leadership capacity on a AAA project.
• Shipped 1 or preferably more AAA console or PC titles from concept to launch that has been recognized for it’s high visual fidelity and/or complex technical constraints.
• Shipped one AAA game using Unreal Engine 5.
• Previously mentored and managed a Technical Art team fostering their growth setting performance expectations and distributing ownership over critical pipeline components.
• Experience supporting large AAA teams using custom Blueprints python scripts or other unique pipelines inside Unreal 5 
• Obtained your Bachelor’s Degree or have equivalent work experience.
• Gained expert-level working knowledge of industry-standard 3D software (e.g. Maya 3ds Max Blender) including Python/scripting APIs for automation.
• Gained proficiency with supporting tools for texture/material creation (e.g. Substance Painter/Designer) and high-fidelity sculpting (e.g. ZBrush).
• Experienced procedural tools like PCG or Houdini to create complex assets environments or destruction effects that scale efficiently.
• Garnered a strong understanding of real-time pipelines including asset workflows performance budgets and optimization techniques.
• Built a solid foundation in programming concepts to facilitate collaboration with Engineers.
• Experienced designing and maintaining robust automated pipelines for asset export validation and integration.

• A strong empathetic leader able to act as the primary driver of your direct report's success.
• A reliable positive force multiplier actively seeking opportunities to integrate work across disciplines and contribute to a healthy supportive team environment.
• A solid communicator with excellent written and verbal communication skills with the ability to articulate complex ideas clearly package information for diverse audiences and deliver difficult feedback with empathy and professionalism.
• A persistent and self-motivated person with a proactive mindset.
• Able to maintain effectiveness and quality under pressure ambiguity and fast-changing priorities.
• An active listener able to build and maintain trust-based relationships across all levels of the organization understand differing perspectives and navigate organizational complexity with tact and emotional intelligence.
• Highly open to feedback and direction possessing a desire to learn new skills and capable of producing quick quality revisions based on new insights or constraints.
• A strong owner of your tasks who strives to drive their work forward autonomously while maintaining a critical eye for detail and organization ensuring high standards of quality.
• Dedicated to upholding Cloud Chamber’s core values contributing to a positive and respectful company culture while striving for excellence in all endeavors.

At Cloud Chamber we strive to make BioShock games that move people: evocative immersive and meaningful experiences that stay with you long after you’ve rolled credits. Great games are born from great collaborations supported by a culture that brings out the best in our teams. We work openly learn through play take ownership push ourselves to be better and deliver for our players.

The pay range for this position in California at the start of employment is expected to be between $133900 - $198160 USD per Year. However base pay offered is based on market location and may vary further depending on individualized factors for job candidates such as job-related knowledge skills experience and other objective business considerations. Subject to those same considerations the total compensation package for this position may also include other elements including a bonus and/or equity awards and eligibility to participate in our 401(K) plan and Employee Stock Purchase Program. Regular full-time employees are also eligible for a range of benefits at the Company including: medical dental vision and basic life insurance coverage; 14 paid holidays per calendar year; paid vacation time per calendar year (ranging from 15 to 25 days) or eligibility to participate in the Company’s discretionary time off program; up to 10 paid sick days per calendar year; paid parental and compassionate leave; wellbeing programs for mental health and other wellness support; family planning support through Maven; commuter benefits; and reimbursements for fitness-related expenses.

For candidates located in Quebec:

• Proficiency in French is required.
• Proficiency in English is required to effectively collaborate with teams based in the United States.

As an equal opportunity employer we are committed to ensuring that qualified individuals with disabilities are provided reasonable accommodation to participate in the job application or interview process perform their essential job functions and receive other benefits and privileges of employment. Please contact us if you need reasonable accommodation.

Please note that 2K Games and its studios never use instant messaging apps or personal email accounts to contact prospective employees or conduct interviews. When emailing prospective employees we only use 2K.com accounts.

What We Do

2K is headquartered in Novato California and is a wholly owned label of Take-Two Interactive Software Inc. (NASDAQ: TTWO). Founded in 2005 2K Games is a global video game company publishing titles developed by some of the most influential game development studios in the world. Our studios responsible for developing 2K’s portfolio of world-class games across multiple platforms include Visual Concepts Firaxis Hangar 13 CatDaddy Cloud Chamber 31st Union and HB Studios. Our portfolio of titles is expanding due to our global strategic plan building and acquiring exciting studios whose content continues to inspire all of us! 2K publishes titles in today’s most popular gaming genres including sports shooters action role-playing strategy casual and family entertainment. Our team of engineers marketers artists writers data scientists producers thinkers and doers are the professional publishing stewards of our growing library of critically-acclaimed franchises such as NBA 2K 2K PGA Battleborn BioShock Borderlands The Quarry The Darkness Mafia Sid Meier’s Civilization Marvel’s Midnight Suns WWE 2K and XCOM. At 2K we pride ourselves on creating an inclusive work environment which means encouraging our teams to Come as You Are and do your best work! We encourage ALL applicants to explore our global positions even if they don’t meet every requirement for the role. If you're interested in the job and think you have what it takes to work at 2K we encourage you to apply!

Why Work With Us

We pride ourselves on creating an inclusive work environment which means encouraging our teams to Come as You Are and do your best work! We push ourselves creatively to do the best work of our careers. We’re direct open and you’ll probably meet some new best friends – along with their dogs – sitting nearby. In short it’s kinda awesome.

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