Lead Technical Artist - Wizard of Oz Slots

Zynga is looking for a Lead Technical Artist to join the team that brings to life one of the most beloved franchises, Wizard of Oz Slots! We make the world’s most beautiful slots and do so in a fast paced, encouraging, and upbeat environment. Our team consists of veterans from the casino and video game industries, giving us phenomenal depth and adaptability.

All applicants must provide an Online Portfolio, Demo Reel or Samples of their work with Shot Breakdowns to be considered for the role.

 

Main Responsibilities

As a Lead Technical Artist, you will have the opportunity to guide and empower a group of amazingly versatile TAs through a journey of strengthening pipelines, chipping in to our tools roadmap and improving the quality and performance of our beloved title. You will empower, support and guide others to excellence, acting as a role model for organizational, technical, and creative skills. You will be working closely with the Art Director, Production and other Discipline Leads to continue building on the success of our live game!

Additional duties include:

• Work closely with the Product, Design, Art and Engineering teams to develop robust design documents.
• Develop an understanding of existing and new Feature and Slot Machine designs to guide the team through planning, costing and reviewing.
• High level understanding of Art Structures and Art Asset usage.
• Proficiency in common TA tasks, including art asset implementation, keyframe reduction & texture optimization.
• High proficiency in investigating and identifying the root cause for bugs.
• Identifying, supporting and contributing to process improvements and efficiency tools.
• Be confident and comfortable providing original ideas and solutions to challenging issues throughout the production environment.
• Act as a go-to source of knowledge and provide training to other team members
• Champion and facilitate building systems that support the needs of the product over a single feature.

Our ideal candidate is a phenomenal communicator, teammate, and proactive problem solver. You draw from a range of skills to creatively tackle for solutions. You are a contributor of ideas, overseer of pipelines, and collaborator across subject area lines providing expertise and seeking out potential issues before they become problems.

In this role, you are the fountain of knowledge across all of our content and strive to help address higher level challenges that affect the team, the product and the process.

Desired Skills and Experience

• Experience at leading teams and individual contributors
• Highly skilled at communication with team members of varying subject areas including written documentation of pipeline processes
• Driven to stay knowledgeable of industry trends and technologies and share those takeaways with the larger technical artist community
• Deep understanding of technical requirements of mobile game development
• 5+ years experience in game development
• Understanding of optimizing art assets for memory and performance considerations
• Passionate about video games
• An appreciation for Casino games, especially video slots
• Experience with version control software such as Perforce and Git
• Core Adobe Creative Suite skills
• General ability to address different art tasks, such as paint-overs, concept mockups, 2D character rigging, animation, etc.
• Steadfast thirst for technical challenges
• A passion for supporting your peers and empowering them to do their job optimally and efficiently
• Some proficiency with OO Programming languages such as Objective C, C++ or C#
• Some knowledge creating shaders for a game engine
• Knowledge of Animation and VFX experience is a plus

What we offer you:

• Competitive salary, bonus plan and ESPP (Employee Stock Purchase Plan)
• 401K Company Match Contribution (US)
• RRSP/DPSP company match contribution (Canada)
• Health coverage, dental, disability, critical illness, EAP, and life insurance (Canada)
• Medical, dental, vision, EAP, life insurance, and disability benefits (US)
• Virtual mental health and neurodiversity support programs
• Global Fitness reimbursement program
• Global Wellbeing Program
• Financial wellness program with unlimited access to certified financial planners
• Discretionary Time Off policy for many employees
• Family planning support program
• Generous paid parental, pregnancy-related disability, caregiver, and compassionate leaves
• Subsidized Back-up child care
• Zynga happy hours and frequent employee events
• Flexible working hours on many teams
• Cul