Technical Art Director

Cloud Chamber is looking for a Technical Art Director to join our team and take ownership over the technical side of visual development for BioShock 4. Acting as the bridge between artists and engineers, you and your team will collaborate with all art disciplines to streamline processes and workflows, create tools for artists, and work within UE5 to achieve maximum efficiency and quality of visual targets. Collectively, you make the impossible happen, turning creative dreams into technical realities.

As a leader at Cloud Chamber we ask for you to be courageous and kind, to have uncompromising ethics and unwavering integrity. Our goal is for you to model the behavior and qualities we like to see in our employees. We encourage you to champion high standards, push for progress, embrace change, and challenge the status quo. Above all else, we want you to foster a positive, proactive, and agile work environment that encourages innovation and collaboration.

Job Details:

• Collaborate closely with the Art and Technical Directors to strategize technical needs for the project, building a solid plan for developing content authoring techniques. 
• Act as a representative on studio wide technical topics.
• Help define technological initiatives and participate in their architecture, planning, development and review.
• Act as the primary point of contact for Technical Art issues, proactively resolving problems and addressing roadblocks.
• Continuously monitor project progress, providing updates to production and stakeholders, adjusting priorities as needed.
• Define performance budget guidelines for art teams.
• Manage a team of technical artists to build tools and shaders, create and refine workflows, and design systems for artists; operating within the limit of the game engine to meet or maximize visual specs. 
• Mentor your team; help them improve their skills and grow their careers.
• Review and provide constructive feedback, ensuring work meets quality standards and project requirements.
• Maximize your team’s output by identifying and removing technical and process barriers.
• Proactively identify opportunities and risks to improve the work of the team, the quality of the project and studio knowledge, and technologies as a whole.
• Establish best practices and standards within the team to drive productivity, quality, and excellence.
• Provide tactical support to ensure that your team is consistently tackling issues, communicating needs and opportunities, and constantly evolving best practices.
• Ensure effective contributions from our Co-Development partners; ensure they are part of the team.
• Collaborate with production and scheduling teams to define realistic timelines and manage project priorities.
• Build and nurture strong relationships with other disciplines within the Studio, utilizing their expertise when appropriate.
• Collaborate with cross-functional teams to identify opportunities for improvement and optimize processes.
• Stay up to date with technology and industry trends to continually drive innovation.
• Foster a positive, proactive, and agile work environment that encourages innovation and collaboration.

Skills, Experience and Qualifications:

• Bachelor’s degree in Art, Digital Art, Computer Science or related discipline.
• 9+ years of experience working in Art, Engineering, or Technical Art roles, with consistent increasing complexity.
• 3+ years of leadership or management experience.
• Deep knowledge and experience developing technical art solutions for AAA games in Unreal Engine.
• Experience shipping multiple AAA Unreal Engine console and PC games.
• Proven leadership skills and a willingness to take initiative to communicate, coordinate, and negotiate between different disciplines with kindness and respect.
• Ability to communicate clearly and effectively with a high degree of detail with peers, partners, and different cultural groups across multiple disciplines with an added ability to clearly express technical material with non-technical audiences.
• Highly detail-oriented, deadline-driven, and able to embrace change for a fast-growing organization.
• Understanding of risk management principles and demonstrated ability to put them into practice.
• Champion of high standards, pushing for progress, embracing change, and challenging the status quo.
• Customer-service mindset to enable and support our success while setting clear boundaries of responsibility.
• Able to respond elegantly to difficult creative changes, often late in the process.
• Able to discuss, support, and advocate for your opinions while being receptive to differing viewpoints.
• Cham