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Principal Technical Artist - Creative Department, Tools & Pipeline

In 2009, Riot released its debut title League of Legends and has since gone on to become the most played PC game in the world and a key driver of the explosive growth of esports. Delivering visually stunning experiences for a global audience while also building new games gives artists exciting and complex problems to solve. Here, artists are working not only with one another, but also side-by-side with game designers, narrative writers, and audio designers and engineers to ensure that each piece of content from Riot reaches the level of quality players deserve. From animations to illustrations, cinematics to comics, characters to environments, we work as a team to put players first.

As a Principal Tools & Pipeline Technical Artist on the Creative Tech team, you will help establish the next gen standards for pipelines and DCC content creation tools at Riot. You will partner with multiple disciplines across Riot, and guide our teams in building the right tools to optimize a variety of artist workflows. You will design artist-facing UI's, and the underlying code architecture for creating intuitive tools for generating multiple types of assets in games, cinematics, music videos, AR/VR, and many other types of projects. You will participate in research, discussions, and reviews with other Tech Artists, Artists, Engineers, and other disciplines. You will take an active role in writing design documents, code reviews, collecting feedback from end-users, and training people in using the systems you've co-developed with your team. As a principal technical artist you will mentor other technical artists as an expert in craft and collaborate across the studio to set the bar for the entire discipline.

Responsibilities:

• Design innovative technical art products and solutions to help game teams build amazing experiences for our fans
• Drive and prioritize technical requirements for innovative products to support a Riot wide Creative pipeline
• Partner with team members to create a Riot centralized suite of Art tools, Python libraries, and backend data systems to support collaboration at scale
• Manage CI/CD pipeline and pull requests for our central code repos
• Advance the quality of Art on our teams by developing improved methods of content creation and scalable workflows
• Provide libraries, documentation, and guidance to technical artists as they solve production-driven problems
• Mentor other developers and support their technical growth

Required Qualifications:

• 8+ years of experience as a Tools & Pipeline Technical Artist in games or related industries
• Deep expertise in content creation tools, such as Maya, Houdini, Substance, and Photoshop
• Highly proficient communication skills and capacity to act as an ambassador between art and engineering
• Superb critical thinking skills, particularly as it pertains to translating artistic requirements to sustainable workflow design
• Expert Python programming skills
• Proficiency in tool and content pipeline design and development
• Expertise in UI/UX design and front end development (PyQt/PySide)
• Expertise designing and maintaining architecture of large modular systems

Desired Qualifications:

• Expertise in game development using modern engines, such as Unreal or Unity
• Experience writing custom plugins to interface with DCC’s or game engines
• Experience with C# and C++

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.

Our Perks:

We offer medical, dental, and vision plans that cover you, your spouse/domestic partner, and children. Life insurance, parental leave, plus short-term and long-term disability coverage are also available. Riot will support your retirement benefits with a company match, and double down on your donations of time and money to non-profit charitable organizations. Balance between work and personal life is encouraged with open paid time off, and a play fund so you can broaden and deepen your personal relationship with games.

It’s our policy to provide equal employment opportunity for all applicants and members of Riot Games, Inc. Riot Games makes reasonable accommodations for handicapped and disabled Rioters and does not unlawfully discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, national origin, age, handicap, veteran status, marital status, criminal history, or any other category protected by applicable federal and state law, including the City of Los Angeles’ Fair Chance Initiative for Hiring Ordinance relating to an applicant's criminal history (LAMC 189.00).