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Technical Art Director

Ascendant Studios is looking for a Technical Art Director to lead our tech art team and define the artistic aspirations of our title from a technical perspective. Our ideal candidate will have a wealth of experience in tech art and will have recently shipped an AAA title on Xbox One or Playstation 4 (or, better yet, PS5 and Xbox Series X!).

This is a full time position. We are all currently working remotely due to Covid-19, but once we return the position may either be based in our office in San Rafael, CA, or remain fully remote.

What you'll do:

• Lead and manage the tech art team
• Define the technical aspirations and constraints for the the project
• Work with engineering to establish and enforce performance standards
• Collaborate with the Art Directors to achieve artistic goals, and with the Engineering Directors to achieve technical ones
• Identify tools and pipelines to improve our processes and product or to solve production problems.
• Spearhead R&D efforts for new internal tools and the integration of external tools and middleware
• Gets their hands dirty to solve our trickiest art tech problems

Who you are:

• 10+ years of experience as a technical artist or tech art lead
• Recently shipped AAA title on Playstation 4 or Xbox One
• Familiarity with modern 3D and procedural software packages, including tools like Maya, 3D Studio Max, Zbrush, Houdini, Speed Tree, etc.
• Strong understanding of modern game development engines and the technologies behind them, with a preference for UE4
• Exceptional understanding of the game development process and art creation pipelines from prototype to final shipped product.
• Expert understanding of optimization of both assets and pipelines
• Strong understanding of Python, C++, C#, and/or other scripting languages
• Great communication skills, both written and verbal
• Self driven and excels under pressure

Bonus points:

• Shipped or currently working on a title on the Playstation 5 or Xbox Series X a huge plus
• Worked on 1st person shooters and/or action games from beginning to end of a development cycle.
• Previous experience on a multiplayer title.