Senior Technical Artist (Character)

For nearly 40years, Naughty Dog has been crafting best-selling, critically acclaimed games that constantly push the boundaries of narrative, gameplay, and technology. Naughty Dog recently released The Last of Us Part 1 for the PS5 and PC. Currently, we're busy at the kennel working on Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet, and we'd love to find talented individuals to join us.

Naughty Dog games have long been lauded for their evocative, character-driven stories and attention to detail. We are committed to innovation within our games and as such have curated some of the top creative and technically innovative minds in the industry. We welcome diverse candidates and believe that a broad range of cultural and life experiences contribute to the overall well-being and success of the studio and titles we craft together.

At Naughty Dog, Senior Technical Artists are critical in developing visual features, driving the look of the game, and building tools that allow our artists to deliver on our ambitious visual standards. Candidates are half-artist and half-programmer. They are proficient in their programming and math skills, they architect clean code, and have advanced knowledge of artist pipelines. In addition to their technical skill contributions, they are expected to have a developed aesthetic vision and an artist’s eye for visual polish. 

What you will do: 

• Write fragment, vertex, and compute shaders to meet art direction and artist needs.

• Write high-level shading features. (example: skin, cloth, wetness, and mud packages), and rendering effects (film grain, health effects, underwater rendering).

• Spearhead the development of features, toolsets and pipelines that meet various art department needs.  Develop tools (in python and c++), and collaborate closely with other tool developers.

• Author, maintain and troubleshoot existing character creation workflows and pipeline efficiency to ensure stability and performance.

• Collaborate regularly and interdepartmentally including with programmers to support the invention, design, and implementation of new character deformations, models, features, pipelines, and workflows.

• Write well-architected code that can be built upon for years to come.

• Support the content team in debugging issues with tools, assets, or framerate.

• Additional responsibilities may be assigned as needed.

What skills you will use:

• 5+ years as a Tech Artist, TD working with Character pipeline, shaders and tools

• Expert proficiency in HLSL or GLSL shading languages, Python, and C++.

• Motivated and proactive self-starter, capable of growing in a highly dynamic environment

• Ability to manage tasks and responsibilities independently with little supervision

• Outstanding problem solving, observation, and debugging skills, with a passion for discovering solutions even outside your area of expertise.

• Excellent oral and written communication skills

Bonus Skills:

• Experience in other content creation software, as a user or tools developer; Houdini, Substance Designer, Substance Painter, etc.

• Experience developing tool UI with QT

• An active contributor to industry publications, events or educational outreach (GDC, SIGGRAPH, etc.)

As part of the Naughty Dog application process, candidates should expect to be given a technical interview.