Senior Technical Artist

Location: Hybrid / Remote – Montreal, QC Preferred
Employment Type: Full-Time
Reports To: CTO

Role Overview

We are looking for an experienced Senior Technical Artist to join the core team developing a UFC style fighting game in Unreal Engine 5.

You’ll bridge the gap between artistic vision and technical execution, building tools, shaders, and pipelines that deliver cinematic realism at 60 FPS across console and PC. You’ll collaborate closely with art, animation, physics, and engineering teams to ensure that every strike, sweat droplet, and arena light feels authentic and performs flawlessly.

You’ll be instrumental in shaping both the visual identity and the technical foundation of the game — ensuring our content pipeline, materials, and VFX are production-ready, performant, and scalable.

Core Responsibilities

Technical Art & Pipeline Development

• Design, build, and maintain real-time art and animation pipelines for characters, environments, and VFX.

• Develop shader networks, material functions, and lighting workflows leveraging UE5 features (Lumen, Nanite, Virtual Shadow Maps).

• Collaborate with animation and tools engineers to streamline mocap → runtime integration (Control Rig, Motion Matching, procedural blending).

• Support the physics team with cloth, muscle, and secondary motion systems (Chaos Cloth, hair, accessories).

• Implement and optimize facial animation and deformation systems, including MetaHuman integration.

• Automate complex export/import tasks via Python or Blueprint scripting.

• Build tools for artists to preview, optimize, and debug content in-engine.
  
  

Optimization & Performance

• Profile and optimize materials, lighting, and VFX for PS5 / Xbox Series X / PC.

• Ensure LOD systems, texture streaming, and memory budgets meet performance targets.

• Collaborate with rendering engineers to balance quality vs. performance budgets.

• Support AI-driven animation blending and procedural FX synchronization (sweat, blood, impact sparks, etc.) to maintain visual consistency.

Cross-Team Collaboration

• Work closely with Technical Animation, Physics, and Rendering teams to ensure data and tools compatibility.

• Collaborate with Art Direction to translate stylistic goals into achievable technical solutions.

• Partner with Engineering to prototype and integrate new features into the game’s pipeline.

• Provide documentation, best practices, and mentorship for artists and junior tech artists.

Required Qualifications

• 5+ years of professional experience as a Technical Artist or equivalent in AAA or high-fidelity real-time production.

• Deep expertise in Unreal Engine 4 / 5 — materials, shaders, Blueprints, lighting, and rendering.

• Strong understanding of animation pipelines, rigging, skinning, and deformation systems.

• Proficiency in Python scripting and/or Unreal Editor scripting for tools automation.

• Solid understanding of PBR materials, lighting models, and performance profiling.

• Excellent communication skills and a collaborative, cross-disciplinary mindset.

Preferred / Bonus Skills

• Experience with Control Rig, Chaos Physics, Motion Warping, and Pose Search integration.

• Familiarity with AI-driven animation blending and procedural motion systems.

• Experience authoring or supporting MetaHumans and facial animation workflows.

• Strong knowledge of Houdini or procedural asset generation.

• Familiarity with character VFX (sweat, skin wetness, dynamic blood, muscle jiggle).

• Experience developing or integrating custom shader pipelines (HLSL or Material Functions).

• Working knowledge of Niagara VFX for combat-driven particle systems.

• Prior experience shipping on PS5 / Xbox Series X|S titles.

Success Indicators (First 6-12 Months)

• Art and animation pipelines fully automated, stable, and integrated into CI builds.

• Character materials and shaders delivering next-gen fidelity at target performance budgets.

• Real-time lighting and arena environments optimized for both console and PC.

• Procedural / physics-based elements (cloth, sweat, blood, impact effects) fully synchronized with animation and gameplay.

• Artist-facing tools documented and adopted across the production team.

• Technical art guidelines established and enforced for the entire studio.