Lead Environment Artist (Skeleton Key)

At Wizards of the Coast, we connect people around the world through play and imagination. From our genre defining games like Magic: The Gathering® and Dungeons & Dragons® to our growing multiverse, we continue to innovate and build new ways to foster friendship and connection. That’s where you come in!

Skeleton Key is a new game development studio and division of Wizards of the Coast. We are a group of industry veterans who are guided by the belief that empowering our teams and providing the proper time, tools, and support we can foster a creative culture where everyone can do their best work.

Our new studio will be located in Austin, TX, and we are looking for a passionate and dedicated Lead Environment Artist to join us and build and manage a diverse team of artists that will be tasked with helping concept, create, and flesh out an immersive world.

Reporting to the Art Director you will play a meaningful role as we concept and kick off pre-production. You will be encouraged to build benchmark, project defining environments that help forge the look and feel of our world. This role requires strong attention to detail, an eye for beautiful lighting and composition as well as extensive skills in creating real-time assets. You are collaborative and creative in your efforts to push tools, styles, and the execution of immersive, well-crafted environments.

What You’ll Do:

• Build beautiful, benchmark environments in engine, setting the quality bar for our project.
• Hire, lead, and mentor a group of environment artists to further their skills and cohesion as a team.
• Assess, critique, and help to improve our capabilities in environmental lighting, textures, and asset creation.
• Work with engineering and technical design to help form and implement our environment art pipeline.
• Work closely with the Art Director and creative leads to drive and evangelize our artistic vision to team members.
• Help strategize and plan all environment art in collaboration with the concept and design teams.
• Manage, set quality bar, and provide feedback for external teams and development partners for all aspects of environment art.

What You’ll Bring:

• 6+ yrs experience in AAA digital game development as an Environment Artist specializing in top-quality terrain, architecture, shaders, and lighting.
• Self-motivation, strong communication skills, and a great team-player attitude.
• Experience managing, mentoring, and leading teams of artists.
• Creative initiative and vision to take an environment to completion from either a detailed or simple concept image.
• Detailed understanding of next-generation asset creation pipelines and tools.
• Experience collaborating with senior creative leadership to help build and implement the artistic direction of a game.
• Outstanding eye for lighting, materials, color theory, detail, and visual hierarchy.
• Able to effectively collaborate with game designers, programmers and other art team members in a creative spirit
• Proven problem-solving and prototyping ability.

We are an Equal Opportunity / Affirmative Action Employer

The above is intended to describe the general content of and the requirements for satisfactory performance in this position. It is not to be construed as an exhaustive statement of the duties, responsibilities, or requirements of the position.

We will ensure that individuals with disabilities are provided reasonable accommodation to participate in the job application or interview process, to perform essential job functions, and to receive other benefits and privileges of employment. If you are selected to move forward in our application process and need to request an accommodation, please let your recruiter or coordinator know.

In compliance with local law, we are disclosing the compensation range for this role. The range listed is just one component of Wizards of the Coast’s total compensation package for employees. Employees may also be eligible for annual and long-term incentives. In addition, Wizards of the Coast provides a variety of benefits to employees. Here’s a look at what your benefits package may include: Medical, Dental & Vision Insurance, Paid Vacation Time & Holidays, Generous 401(k) match, Paid Parental Leave, Volunteer Program, Employee Giving & Matching Gifts Programs, Tuition Reimbursement, Product Discounts, and more.

Compensation Range

$88,960 — $146,400 USD