Harmonix seeks an experienced Senior Technical Artist to understand and enhance its art production pipelines serving all internal projects. This is a rare opportunity to work on the game engine team; guiding custom tool development, establishing production pipelines, enhancing art & code communication and providing training to the art department. This role will include daily meetings with other tech artists to understand the technical needs of each project and contribute actual work on a project when needed.

Responsibilities:

• Research and development to promote innovations in the visual quality of Harmonix games
• Maintain art production pipelines and promote best practices among artists
• Enhance communication between art and code teams
• Assist artists with art asset budgets and optimization procedures
• Contribute to art tool development by scripting tools as well as overseeing development and testing
• Collaborate with a diverse team of technical artists, engineers and artists
• Reach out to artists on a daily basis to discover flaws in artist production pipelines and artist tools
• Conduct training sessions and documentation to support new game engine releases on a quarterly basis

This job listing originated on Gamasutra.com, the game industry's leader.

Qualifications:

• Excellent communication skills
• Self-starter and organized
• Minimum 2 years game industry experience
• Minimum 1 shipped console title
• Character rigging in both Maya and 3dsmax, a plus
• Scripting, coding and art tool creation, a plus (ie. maxscript, python, mel)
• Mentoring and training experience, a plus
• Creating solutions to address optimization of game assets, a plus
• Creating complex shaders, special effects and lighting, a plus
• Willingness to learn new tools and techniques, and adapt to a variety of software
• Eager to create games that do not follow traditional game-art styles
• Love of music and an openness to new music
• BFA and/or CS degree or equivalent education

Sample Work Required (please provide the following):

• A link to an online portfolio that is kept up to date
• An explanation of your work: what you were responsible for, what tools were used, etc.