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The Role
Work on enhancing rendering features and performance for a UE5 project, collaborating with artists and tech leads. Responsibilities include optimizing real-time rendering systems and addressing visual artifacts and stability issues.
Summary Generated by Built In
Blackbird Interactive is a creative-fueled, future-driven, independent game studio where the best talent in the industry can find long-term careers to help grow their abilities while working on a wide range of projects, which encompass world-class IPs as well as our own creations across multiple genres.
In 2022, we announced that our studio is implementing a four-day work week as well as supporting in-studio, remote within Canada, and hybrid work arrangements as permanent options to our employees.
We are building a talent pool for future Rendering Engineers (intermediate or senior) to help build and optimize a visually ambitious UE5 title. You will work across real-time rendering systems and content pipelines with a focus on Nanite, Lumen, and World Partition. Console experience (PS5, Xbox Series X|S, Switch 2) is a major bonus. This role is remote-friendly in Canada (Pacific-time overlap required).
What You’ll Tackle
- Own and evolve rendering features and performance for a UE5 project across PC and consoles.
- Drive visual quality and scalability using UE5’s modern rendering stack, including Nanite, Lumen, virtual shadow maps, and temporal upscaling.
- Profile and optimize GPU and CPU frame time, frame pacing, and hitching using Unreal Insights and rendering capture and analysis tools.
- Partner with art and tech art to define content constraints and best practices for performance-friendly assets, materials, and lighting.
- Support large-world production with World Partition, including streaming strategy, HLOD workflows, and memory behavior.
- Diagnose and resolve visual artifacts and stability issues, such as lighting/shadow issues, temporal instability, and rendering regressions.
- Contribute to rendering-related tooling and workflows, such as debug views, performance reporting, and validation checks.
- Provide clear technical communication to production and stakeholders on constraints, trade-offs, and risk.
You’ll Thrive Here If You
- 4+ years of professional game development experience (we are hiring at both intermediate and senior levels; title/level will match experience).Strong Unreal Engine 5 (or UE4 plus meaningful UE5 experience) and modern C++ skills.
- Solid understanding of real-time rendering fundamentals, including lighting, shadows, materials, post-processing, and temporal techniques.
- Demonstrated experience improving performance and stability in a production environment.
- Comfortable collaborating with cross-disciplinary partners to align visual targets with platform budgets.
- Ability to take ownership, deliver maintainable solutions, and contribute constructively to team standards.
Bonus XP
- Shipped at least one title on PS5, Xbox Series X|S, or Nintendo hardware, especially with rendering and performance responsibility.
- Hands-on experience shipping with Nanite and Lumen, including scalability strategies and artifact mitigation.
- Experience with World Partition and large-world streaming and HLOD pipelines.
- Familiarity with Niagara and real-time VFX performance considerations.
- Experience with platform GPU profiling and capture workflows (for example RenderDoc, PIX, and equivalent console tooling).Experience building rendering or performance tooling that improves team velocity and regression detection.
Interested in connecting? Please submit an application, letting us know when you’re next available. From there, if your profile is a good match, we will be in touch with more information.
Top Skills
C++
Unreal Engine 5
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The Company
What We Do
Blackbird Interactive (BBI) is a creative-fueled, future-driven, independent studio - behind such games as Homeworld: Deserts of Kharak, Hardspace: Shipbreaker, and the upcoming Homeworld 3, Minecraft Legends, and Crossfire: Legion.
Founded by Rob Cunningham, Yossarian King, and Aaron Kambeitz in 2010, the award-winning Vancouver studio boast its own internal CG cinematics department, led by the founder of Pixar Canada, and has also been involved in various game-adjacent projects over the years - such as Project Eagle with the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and other initiatives with the eatART Foundation and Sanctuary AI.
