Principal Environment Artist – Talent Pipeline

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Keywords Studios

WebsiteLinkedInAll Job Openings

10,000+ employees

Founded 1998

🎮 Gaming

📱 Media

🤖 Artificial Intelligence

Gaming • Media • Artificial Intelligence

Keywords Studios is the #1 global games services provider, offering an end-to-end platform supercharged by technology. They deliver technical and creative solutions to the global video games industry, with services including game development, art services, audio development, QA testing, localization, marketing services, and player engagement. Keywords Studios also works on accessibility services, content globalization, and advanced AI & technology solutions. Founded on decades of experience, they are committed to responsible business practices and provide industry-wide insights for unparalleled experiences to audiences around the world.

📋 Description

• Create high-quality real-time environments, architecture, modular kits, hero assets, materials, terrain, foliage, and world-building content. • Produce benchmark assets and scenes that communicate expectations for composition, scale, visual hierarchy, material quality, environmental storytelling, and final polish. • Translate art direction, concept art, reference material, design requirements, and client feedback into clear production goals. • Establish environment-art strategies for modular construction, asset reuse, trim sheets, material systems, terrain, foliage, set dressing, and world building. • Maintain a strong hands-on contribution when establishing quality bars, validating workflows, solving difficult problems, or supporting critical deliverables. • Evaluate environment artwork objectively and provide specific, actionable feedback through reviews, paintovers, blockouts, reference boards, documentation, or in-engine examples. • Partner with Art Direction, Production, and Technical Art to define environment workflows that balance visual quality, scope, schedule, and technical requirements. • Identify artistic, technical, and production risks early and recommend practical solutions. • Help teams break down broad or incomplete direction into understandable tasks, milestones, priorities, and acceptance criteria. • Improve environment-art pipelines through reusable workflows, templates, documentation, example assets, and production standards. • Support planning and estimation by evaluating asset complexity, dependencies, staffing needs, and production risks. • Troubleshoot challenging issues related to asset construction, materials, world building, optimization, engine implementation, or content integration. • Help ensure environments meet project requirements for performance, memory, streaming, draw calls, shader complexity, collision, LODs, and platform limitations. • Guide environment artists across internal teams, partner studios, and external development groups. • Mentor senior artists and emerging leads in artistic judgment, communication, planning, review practices, and decision-making. • Collaborate with Art Directors to maintain a consistent visual direction across teams and deliverables. • Participate in client meetings, milestone reviews, art reviews, and project-planning discussions when senior environment-art representation is needed. • Communicate risks, tradeoffs, priorities, and recommendations clearly to artistic and non-artistic stakeholders. • Help align teams working across different studios, disciplines, cultures, and time zones. • Support prototypes, art tests, project pitches, preproduction efforts, and early pipeline development. • Contribute to the continued growth of GameSim’s environment-art discipline through mentorship, hiring support, portfolio reviews, documentation, and capability planning.

🎯 Requirements

• Extensive professional experience in game development, real-time production, or a closely related field. • Multiple shipped games or comparable professional real-time projects. • A portfolio demonstrating exceptional environment-art quality and strong production judgment. • Expert understanding of composition, scale, proportion, visual hierarchy, shape language, material definition, lighting response, environmental storytelling, and scene cohesion. • Advanced experience creating modular environments, architecture, props, terrain, materials, and reusable asset systems. • Strong understanding of modeling, UVs, baking, texel density, trim sheets, tileable materials, decals, vertex blending, and real-time material workflows. • Professional experience developing environments in Unreal Engine or another modern real-time engine. • Strong understanding of environment optimization, including LODs, memory, streaming, draw calls, collision, shader complexity, and platform constraints. • Experience establishing visual benchmarks, environment pipelines, asset standards, or production workflows. • Demonstrated ability to solve complex artistic, technical, and production problems with limited supervision. • Experience guiding senior artists, leads, distributed teams, external partners, or vendors. • Ability to provide clear, constructive, and actionable artistic feedback. • Strong understanding of how to balance quality, scope, schedule, technical requirements, and available resources. • Strong written, verbal, presentation, and interpersonal communication skills. • Experience collaborating with Art Direction, Production, Technical Art, Design, Engineering, Lighting, VFX, and other development disciplines. • Ability to adapt to different projects, visual styles, engines, pipelines, and client expectations. • Comfort participating in client-facing discussions and representing environment-art decisions professionally.

🏖️ Benefits

• Opportunities to contribute to a variety of projects, clients, genres, platforms, and visual styles. • The ability to influence environment-art quality and production practices across multiple teams. • Collaboration with experienced developers and studios across the Keywords Studios organization. • Professional-development and mentorship opportunities. • Flexible remote, hybrid, and in-office work arrangements where available. • 3 weeks of paid leave • Benefits package including medical, dental and vision • Sick Leave • Disability Coverage • Corporate holidays • Professional Development