Principal Technical Artist

As a Principal Rendering Technical Artist on LoL PC - Gameplay, you will be a vision holder that's accountable for driving progress forward across League PC using League Engine in the shaders, materials, and lighting space. You will be responsible for defining technical best practices in shaders and materials, and advocate for new rendering features on behalf of teams that would benefit from them. You will also be hands-on and directly support content and tools teams as a Shaders and Materials expert. You will serve the needs of Art Direction and Production, while maintaining alignment with tech art, engineering, and art.

• Research & Development: Lead research initiatives related to real-time rendering technologies, methodologies, and techniques to advance the state-of-the-art within the company and industry.
• Shader Development: Create advanced shaders and rendering techniques for a variety of platforms, ensuring optimal performance and visual quality.
• Pipeline Enhancement: Collaborate with the development team to enhance, design, and implement efficient art and rendering pipelines.
• Technical Guidance: Serve as a technical liaison between the R&D team and content creators, providing guidance, best practices, and support to ensure assets are of high quality and are optimized.
• Prototyping: Build and test prototypes based on new rendering concepts, evaluating their potential for wider application within the company.
• Documentation: Document and disseminate findings, techniques, and processes to both technical and non-technical team members.
• Collaboration: Work closely with engineers, designers, and artists to understand and address challenges, and to drive the technical vision forward.
• Mentoring: Share knowledge with junior team members and provide training sessions as required.

• 8+ years experience as a technical artist in the game industry
• Experience in efficient material and shader development for 3D characters, props, and environments.
• Proficiency in shader languages like HLSL, GLSL
• Extensive experience with PBR workflows
• Strong art skills with experience and an understanding of modeling, shaders, texturing, & lighting for games
• Extensive experience working with game engine scripting and materials, real-time lighting & rendering, and workflows
• Proficient communication skills and capacity to act as an ambassador between art and engineering
• Experience with modern game engines such as Unreal Engine, Unity, or proprietary engines.

• Expertise in content creation and tool development in DCC tools, especially Maya, Photoshop, and Substance Designer/Painter
• Previous experience with stylized content pipelines and understanding of tradeoffs we've made historically

As a part of the application process, candidates will be expected to provide a portfolio or demo reel of their work and may be asked to complete an art test.

For this role, you'll find success through craft expertise, a collaborative spirit, and decision-making that prioritizes the delight of players. We will be looking at your past studies, experience, and your personal relationship with games. If you embody player empathy and care about players' experiences, this could be your role

Riot focuses on work/life balance, shown by our open paid time off policy and other perks such as flexible work schedules. We offer medical, dental, and life insurance, parental leave for you, your spouse/domestic partner, and children, and a 401k with company match. Check out our benefits pages for more information.

Riot Games fosters a player and workplace experience that values teamwork embodied by the Summoner's Code and Community Code. Our culture embraces differences as a strength, and our values are the guiding principles for how we approach work. We are committed to putting diversity and inclusion (D&I) at the center of everything we do and promoting a fair and collaborative culture where Rioters treat one another with dignity and respect. We encourage you to read more about our value of thriving together and our ongoing work to build the most inclusive company in Gaming.