Technical Artist (5-month Contract)
Blackbird Interactive is a creative-fueled, future-driven, independent game studio where the best talent in the industry can find long-term careers to help grow their abilities while working on a wide range of projects, which encompass world-class IPs as well as our own creations across multiple genres.
Our studio operates as a remote-first workplace, offering flexible work arrangements.
At this time, we are only able to hire candidates who are legally eligible to work in Canada and reside within Canada.
Blackbird Interactive is looking for a Technical Artist to join our team and continue developing a AAA Sci-fi action title.
Working under the supervision of both the Art Director and Technical Director, you’ll be working within a proprietary engine to extend existing rendering features in addition to supporting the art team in their various engine and content pipelines.
We’re looking for someone with previous experience to partner with an art team and engineers to deliver game features and authoring tools. An ideal candidate will have an excellent sense of development processes, sophisticated art and game pipelines, good people skills, and ability to build content development plans.Please note that to be considered for this role, you must be currently located in Canada with valid work authorization in place. We are unable to support immigration at this time.
Responsibilities
Act as a bridge between Art, Engineering, and the game engine, helping teams communicate effectively and solve cross-disciplinary problems
Support artists with art-to-engine integration, including setup, debugging, and optimization of assets and systems
Design, build, and maintain tools, scripts, and workflows that improve artist productivity and content quality
Collaborate with artists on animation, modeling, texturing, shaders, FX, and other real-time content disciplines
Help identify visual or performance issues and devise high-quality solutions within technical constraints
Contribute to the development and maintenance of art pipelines and production processes
Generate clear, concise documentation for tools, workflows, and pipelines
Take ownership of technical challenges, work with minimal supervision, and proactively propose improvements
Requirements
Strong understanding of real-time content development and game art pipelines.
Experience working in proprietary and off-the-shelf game engines.
Technical proficiency across one or more art disciplines (eg. animation, modeling, texturing, FX) with a solid grasp of how they interact in-engine
Experience supporting or developing production tools and workflows
Programming and scripting experience (eg. C++, C#, Python, or similar)
Understanding of asset management and version control practices
Familiarity with animation rigs and game animation systems
Experience working with DCC tools such as Maya, 3DsMax, Blender, Painter
Strong problem-solving skills, curiosity, and a collaborative mindset
Pluses
Understanding of shader development and material systems
Experience with particle systems and real-time visual effects
Knowledge of performance profiling and optimization for real-time content
Experience with Perforce (P4V)