Technical Artist, Pokémon GO

Pokémon GO is the global gaming sensation that has been downloaded over 1 billion times and named “Best Mobile Game” by the Game Developers Choice Awards and “Best App of the Year” by TechCrunch. Pokémon GO follows Niantic’s mission of encouraging outdoor exploration, exercise, and significant social interactions, and has grossed over $6B in revenue since its debut in 2016. In order to delight our millions of players across the globe, the Pokémon GO team requires motivated and skilled individuals to develop new features and look for creative ways to optimize a continually growing game.

We are seeking a Technical Artist with creative and technical expertise to help across a variety of live-game challenges and features. You will work with cross-functional partners and bridge technical and creative aspects of game development. You will leverage your curiosity and passion for mobile games to develop best in class game features.

Responsibilities

• Collaborate with art, design, engineering, and product teams to build features and solve creative problems.
• Build rapid prototypes of experimental features using Unity 3D or other mobile platform tools.
• Iterate on Unity 3D scene implementation to finalize product and creative requirements.
• Create performant graphics shaders for beautiful visuals.
• Facilitate communication and collaboration between art and engineering.
• Collaborate with cross-functional team members and stakeholders, including regular and reliable attendance and participation in meetings.
• Required in-office 2 days on Wednesday and Thursday.

Qualifications

• 3+ years as a Technical Artist or similar role.
• Experience in Python, C#, or similar scripting languages.
• Experience in modern 3D game engines such as Unity 3D.
• Knowledge of optimization and performance profiling of real-time 3D content and pipelines for mobile platforms.
• Familiarity across multiple areas of Tech Art such as animation, graphics, pipelines and tooling, scripting gameplay, etc.
• Ability to work in a fast-paced hybrid environment and handle stress appropriately and/or ability to solve practical problems and be sufficiently adaptable to handle dynamic situations with little advance notice.
• Experience working on cross-functional teams with ability to communicate effectively through written and verbal communications, including synchronous interactions with others.

Plus If...

• BS or MS degree in design, games-related or technical field.
• Solid artistic skills (color, shape, light, motion).
• Experience collaborating within a multi-person game studio.
• Experience writing shaders (HLSL or GLSL).
• Experience developing tools for artists or designers.

The total compensation package for this position includes a new hire offer base salary range of $121,000 - $141,000+ bonus + equity + benefits.

Individual pay within this salary range is determined by work location and additional factors, including assessed job-related skills, experience, and relevant education or training. Your recruiter can answer any questions about new hire total compensation during the hiring process. An overview of benefit offerings for your location can be found on the careers page.

Join the Niantic team!

Niantic's global-scale augmented reality platform and digital map powers spatial computing experiences in the real world. Incubated out of the Maps team at Google, Niantic first created Ingress and then Pokémon GO, a cultural phenomenon and hit game played by tens of millions of people each month. Niantic’s Lightship platform, which powers Pokémon GO, also supports the company's other games including Pikmin Bloom, Peridot and Monster Hunter Now. Developers use Niantic’s platform to build their own AR applications and experiences, either with the Lightship Platform or directly through the web with 8th Wall.

We believe that cultivating a workplace where our people are supported and included is essential to creating great products our community will love. Our mission emphasizes seeking and hiring diverse voices, including those who are traditionally underrepresented in the technology industry, and we consider this to be one of the most important values we hold close.

Niantic is a hybrid first company. We believe that in person interaction and collaboration fosters creativity, a sense of community, and is critical to our future success as a company. Our hybrid work schedules allow for a mix of remote and in-office work.

We're a hard-working, fun, and exciting group who value intellectual curiosity and a passion for problem-solving! We have growing offices located in San Francisco, Sunnyvale, Palo Alto, Bellevue, Kansas, London, Tokyo, Hamburg, Hyderabad, and Zurich. #LI-HYBRID