Lead Pipeline Technical Artist - Hearthstone

Your Mission

Blizzard Entertainment is seeking a talented, driven, and collaborative, Lead Technical Artist to help define and support a 3D pipeline for Hearthstone. We’re looking for a developer with a high level of experience designing and supporting 3D pipelines within Maya and Unity. Strong leadership skills and managing multiple Technical Artists is required.

As a Lead Technical Artist on Hearthstone, your role will use your understanding of game development tools to help develop asset integration workflows and identify areas of improvement in our development processes. You will bring your initiative, creative problem-solving abilities to help build, support, and maintain technical solutions for the art team. We are a team that values open-minded collaboration and direct feedback. If you have passion for game development, enjoy collaboration, and like working in a fast-paced, highly iterative environment, we’d love to have you join us!

Remote eligible:

“This role is anticipated to be a hybrid work position, with some work on-site and some work-from-home. The potential home studio for this role is Albany, NY or Irvine, CA. However, we understand each person’s circumstances may be unique and will work with you to explore other possible options, including remote work arrangements.”

What you bring to the table:

Priorities can often change in a fast-paced environment like ours, so this role includes, but is not limited to, the following responsibilities:

We entrust you with:

• Bridging the gap between Artists and Engineers.

• Supporting the Art team through any technical issues they may encounter.

• Developing and maintaining art pipelines and processes, including ownership of the tools you craft and documentation of tool workflows.

• Exploring creative solutions, seeking feedback & striving for quality, as well as following coding structure and guidelines.

• Identifying potential and recurring workflow problems and collaborating with other developers to find viable solutions through communication, mentorship, and both custom and off-the-shelf tools solutions.

• Helping to promote performance optimization for art assets by creating clear standards, performance monitoring tools, and building a maintainable process for reviewing and optimizing game assets.

Leadership Duties:

• Provide guidance during creative discussions with Art leadership.

• Manage multiple reports and set expectations clearly.

• Act as the primary voice for the Technical Art team.

• Provide continued career growth to the Technical Art team.

• Partner with production and Art Management to ensure schedules and plans meet business needs.

Minimum Requirements

Experience

• Proficiency in technical problem-solving and debugging game content and processes.

• 10+ years of experience in video game development

• Start to finish experience developing AAA titles.

Knowledge & Skills

• Familiarity with Unity game engine and it’s workflows.

• You’re comfortable developing tools in C# and Python. specifically, as it applies to programming in DCC applications (Such as Maya).

• Intimate knowledge of game development.

• Ability to pioneer practical production-oriented Art workflows.

Key Attributes

• Strong written and verbal communication skills with the ability to synthesize feedback and generate goals to achieve success.

• An iterative, service driven, collaborative approach to tools development and problem-solving.

• A self-starter: highly self-motivated and driven to support art disciplines and pipelines.

Your Platform

Best known for iconic video game universes including Warcraft®, Overwatch®, Diablo®, and StarCraft®, Blizzard Entertainment, Inc. (www.blizzard.com), a division of Activision Blizzard, which was acquired by Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT), is a premier developer and publisher of entertainment experiences. Blizzard Entertainment has created some of the industry’s most critically acclaimed and genre-defining games over the last 30 years, with a track record that includes multiple Game of the Year awards. Blizzard Entertainment engages tens of millions of players around the world with titles available on PC via Battle.net®, Xbox, PlayStation, Nintendo Switch, iOS, and Android.

Our World

Activision Blizzard, Inc., is one of the world's largest and most successful interactive entertainment companies and is at the intersection of media, technology and entertainment. We are home to some of the most beloved entertainment franchises including Call of Duty®, World of Warcraft®, Overwatch®, Diablo®, Candy Crush™ and Bubble Witch™. Our combined entertainment network delights hundreds of millions of monthly active users in 196 countries, making us the largest gaming network on the planet!

Our ability to build immersive and innovative worlds is only enhanced by diverse teams working in an inclusive environment. We aspire to have a culture where everyone can thrive in order to connect and engage the world through epic entertainment. We provide a suite of benefits that promote physical, emotional and financial well-being for ‘Every World’ - we’ve got our employees covered!

The video game industry and therefore our business is fast-paced and will continue to evolve. As such, the duties and responsibilities of this role may be changed as directed by the Company at any time to promote and support our business and relationships with industry partners.

We love hearing from anyone who is enthusiastic about changing the games industry. Not sure you meet all the qualifications? Let us decide! Research shows that women and members of other under-represented groups tend to not apply to jobs when they think they may not meet every qualification, when, in fact, they often do! We are committed to creating a diverse and inclusive environment and strongly encourage you to apply.

We are committed to working with and providing reasonable assistance to individuals with physical and mental disabilities. If you are a disabled individual requiring an accommodation to apply for an open position, please email your request to accommodationrequests@activisionblizzard.com. General employment questions cannot be accepted or processed here. Thank you for your interest.

We are an equal opportunity employer and value diversity at our company. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, age, marital status, veteran status, or disability status, among other characteristics.

Rewards

We provide a suite of benefits that promote physical, emotional and financial well-being for ‘Every World’ - we’ve got our employees covered! Subject to eligibility requirements, the Company offers comprehensive benefits including:

• Medical, dental, vision, health savings account or health reimbursement account, healthcare spending accounts, dependent care spending accounts, life and AD&D insurance, disability insurance;

• 401(k) with Company match, tuition reimbursement, charitable donation matching;

• Paid holidays and vacation, paid sick time, floating holidays, compassion and bereavement leaves, parental leave;

• Mental health & wellbeing programs, fitness programs, free and discounted games, and a variety of other voluntary benefit programs like supplemental life & disability, legal service, ID protection, rental insurance, and others;

• If the Company requires that you move geographic locations for the job, then you may also be eligible for relocation assistance.

Eligibility to participate in these benefits may vary for part time and temporary full-time employees and interns with the Company. You can learn more by visiting https://www.benefitsforeveryworld.com/.

In the U.S., the standard base pay range for this role is $134,320.00 - $248,404.00 Annual. These values reflect the expected base pay range of new hires across all U.S. locations. Ultimately, your specific range and offer will be based on several factors, including relevant experience, performance, and work location. Your Talent Professional can share this role’s range details for your local geography during the hiring process. In addition to a competitive base pay, employees in this role may be eligible for incentive compensation. Incentive compensation is not guaranteed.