Principal Lighting Artist

High Voltage Software, we firmly believe that the best gameplay experiences are the result of collaboration and iteration between gameplay programmers, designers, and artists.

Responsibilities:

• Carry lighting of environment spaces through from pre-production to final polish
• Help to manage and ensure the integrity of lighting on all assets
• Capably troubleshoot and solve lighting production issues
• Strive to maximize art production performance and predictability
• Stays current on industry trends and techniques, evaluating competitive products, and continually learning new software packages.

Qualifications

• Minimum of 5 years of professional experience as a Lighting Artist in video game development, with at least one shipped AAA title on current generation hardware.
• A strong portfolio demonstrating expert use of light, color, value, and composition to enhance gameplay, mood, and visual storytelling in real-time environments.
• Deep understanding of lighting principles and how light interacts with surfaces and atmospherics (e.g., fog, volumetrics) in a game engine context.
• Proven proficiency in real-time lighting pipelines, tools, and systems used in modern game development, including performance optimization for high frame rates.
• Hands-on experience with Unreal Engine 5, including lighting workflows, Blueprint systems, and the Time of Day system (e.g., animating curves for dynamic lighting transitions).
• Expertise in tools such as 3DS Max, lighting-specific software, and both real-time and offline rendering engines.
• Familiarity with lighting components, set dressing for atmosphere, and maintaining precomputed lighting systems such as light probes and image-based lighting.
• Strong technical aptitude in areas such as HDR, physically-based rendering (PBR), color grading, post-processing effects, tonemapping workflows, EV values, LUTs, and color spaces (linear vs log2).
• Demonstrated ability to debug lighting issues, optimize content for performance, and maintain organized, efficient workflows and asset structures.
• Solid understanding of photographic lighting fundamentals relevant to real-time rendering (e.g., shutter speed, aperture, exposure).
• Ability to self-manage and take ownership of lighting tasks from concept to final polish with minimal supervision.
• Experience documenting lighting workflows and approaches for team-wide adoption and consistency.
• Capable of identifying and executing on multiple lighting approaches to support a given theme, gameplay goal, or narrative direction.
• Strong communication and collaboration skills to work closely with environment artists, level designers, and technical teams.

Benefits

As a member of our team, you'll enjoy the following:

• Opportunity to work on some of the biggest AAA games in the industry
• Great work-life balance
• Collaborative and casual work environment
• Competitive salary
• Comprehensive benefits package including medical, dental and vision
• 401K plan