Lead Lighting Artist

Firesprite, a PlayStation Studio in Liverpool, is seeking a Lead Lighting Artist. This role involves overseeing all aspects of lighting production, collaborating with Art and Cinematography Directors, and empowering the lighting team to achieve best-in-class lighting with atmosphere, tone, and mood. The ideal candidate will have expertise in real-time lighting, a strong understanding of game production, and a people-first management approach, with a passion for immersive gameplay and cinematic experiences.

Must Have

• Work with Art and Cinematography Direction to bring the Project Pillars to life through pushing for visual excellence and technical compliance for Lighting in an Unreal Engine based pipeline.
• Lead the Lighting team through maintaining consistency across the department providing direction and feedback.
• Oversight of all lighting content including completion of production deliverables from initial previs to final polish pass.
• Oversee the lighting production and creative processes, pipeline and methodology.
• Collaborate and drive for solutions for purpose driven and scalable Lighting tooling, pipelines and technical standards.
• Assume ownership of critical lighting systems and features.
• Collaborate with other teams including Environment Art, Level Design, VFX, Cinematics and Tech Art.
• Work closely with the Lighting team as a people-focused manager through mentorship and coaching.
• Manage external co-development teams through reviewing technical and visual aspects of lighting work and providing feedback and oversight.
• Maintains current industry knowledge and possesses strong technical understanding of best-of-class game lighting, tools, techniques and workflows.
• Experience in shipping multiple projects on major platforms.
• Portfolio showcasing expert grasp on creating compelling visuals through lighting for environments, characters and cinematics.
• Experience in production management processes and methodologies.
• Excellent production experience and understanding of Physically Based Rendering pipeline and HDR pipelines.
• Expert proficiency and production experience lighting within a game engine (preferably Unreal Engine 4 or 5).
• Excellent understanding of fundamentals of light, colour and value, visual compositions and photographic or cinematography techniques.
• Strong collaborative nature, proactive, self-motivated, and able to work with minimum direct supervision.
• Experience with mentorship, guidance and skills development.
• Expert grasp on communications and organisational skills.
• Open to criticism and possessing an excellent capacity to solve both creative and technical problems.

Good to Have

• Previous leadership or equivalent experience.
• Good experience with DaVinci Resolve.
• In-depth understanding of Blueprints or other tools.
• In-depth knowledge and experience with Shaders, Materials, Profiling, and technical aspects of game art.
• Good experience in mentoring and guiding members from internal and external teams.

Perks & Benefits

• Competitive Salary, Bonus & Pension
• Family Friendly Policies (enhanced parent/caregiver leave, emergency days, compassionate leave)
• Mental Health & Wellbeing (wellbeing breaks, daily quiet hours, early finish Fridays, wellness resources, 24-hour confidential helpline)
• Extended Holiday Allowance (25 days + public holidays + wellness breaks, up to 35 days total)
• Buy and sell holiday scheme
• Cycle to work scheme
• Private Medical Insurance (extendable to partners and children)
• Dental plans (extendable to partners and children)
• Industry-Leading Facilities (free refreshments, gaming areas, wellness areas, neurodivergent spaces, prayer room, breakout areas, social hubs, cutting-edge tech)
• Robust learning and development opportunities
• Relocation assistance
• Financial planning services
• Eye care support
• Staff sales
• Game code allocation
• Discounts on activities, services and experiences
• Additional holidays and special gifts for 5 years of service
• Discretionary bonus opportunity
• Hybrid Working (within Flexmodes)
• Access to cycle garage and showers

Firesprite is a visionary game development studio based in the heart of Liverpool.

Proud to be an integral part of the PlayStation Studios family, we create showcase games that take players on thrilling journeys, with memorable characters, captivating narratives, and shared moments of excitement. Our commitment to the core values of Inclusivity, Bravery, Responsiveness, and Entrepreneurialism is a key driving force behind our work culture.

Role Overview:

We are seeking a talented Lead Lighting Artist to join our team. Collaborating with Art Director, Cinematography Director and other Art Leads, the Lead Lighting Artist will be responsible for overseeing all aspects of lighting production and processes and to collaborate and empower the lighting team to succeed in achieving our ambitions for a game with best-in-class Lighting filled with atmosphere, tone, and mood!

Our ideal candidate not only has an expert grasp on the artistic craft and technical understanding of real-time Lighting, but also carries a well-rounded view of the craft and how it relates to overall game production, is a manager with a focus on team development and people-first approach, and above all else, possesses a passion for immersive gameplay and cinematic experiences, the ability to inspire and share their hard-earned expertise!

What you'll be doing:

• Work with Art and Cinematography Direction to bring the Project Pillars to life through pushing for visual excellence and technical compliance for Lighting in an Unreal Engine based pipeline.
• Lead the Lighting team through maintaining consistency across the department providing direction and feedback, ensuring all team members understand their role in the department and know what is expected of them.
• Oversight of all lighting content including completion of production deliverables from initial previs to final polish pass.
• Oversee the lighting production and creative processes, pipeline and methodology and able to combine Art Direction goals and Team goals into an actionable plan for the success of the team and project.
• Collaborate and drive for solutions for purpose driven and scalable Lighting tooling, pipelines and technical standards with Lighting and Tech teams.
• Assume ownership of critical lighting systems and features, through collaborating in aligned development with other teams, continued maintenance and evolution of features and knowledge sharing within the lighting team and wider teams.
• Collaborate with other teams including Environment Art, Level Design, VFX, Cinematics and Tech Art to define collaborative processes that advances and enrich both narrative, gameplay and visual goals for the project.
• Work closely with the Lighting team as a people-focused manager through mentorship and coaching for team members including but not limited to 1:1s, career and craft development, performance evaluations, and goal-setting exercises.
• Manage external co-development teams through reviewing technical and visual aspects of lighting work and providing feedback and oversight
• Maintains current industry knowledge and possesses strong technical understanding of best-of-class game lighting, tools, techniques and workflows and shares findings.

What we're looking for:

• Experience in shipping multiple projects on major platforms.
• Portfolio should showcase an expert grasp on the craft of creating compelling visuals through lighting, as well as a gamut of experience in lighting for environments, characters and cinematics.
• Experience in production management processes and methodologies.
• Excellent production experience and understanding of Physically Based Rendering pipeline and good understanding of HDR pipelines.
• Expert proficiency and production experience lighting within a game engine (preferably Unreal Engine 4 or 5) and excellent understanding of tools, technologies and development & implementation of efficient and optimized lighting systems/pipeline and post-process effects.
• Excellent understanding of fundamentals of light, colour and value, visual compositions and photographic or cinematography techniques in relation to their application in games.
• Strong collaborative nature, proactive, self-motivated, and able to work with minimum direct supervision.
• Experience with mentorship, guidance and skills development.
• Expert grasp on communications and organisational skills.
• Open to criticism but also possessing an excellent capacity to solve both creative and technical problems.

Desirable skills:

• Previous leadership or equivalent experience.
• Good experience with DaVinci Resolve.
• In-depth understanding of Blueprints or other tools.
• In-depth knowledge and experience with Shaders, Materials, Profiling, and technical aspects of game art.
• Good experience in mentoring and guiding members from internal and external teams

Benefits:

• Discretionary bonus opportunity
• Hybrid Working (within Flexmodes)
• Private Medical Insurance
• Dental Scheme
• 25 days holiday per year
• Access to cycle garage and showers