Senior Technical Artist - Unpublished R&D Product

Riot Technical Artists blend deep technical skill with artistic sensibilities, enabling teams to build beautiful, performant, and expressive game experiences. As a Technical Artist III on an Unpublished R&D Product, you will be foundational in developing the visual identity of new gameplay experiences. Your work will empower rapid iteration, unblock engineering and design, and establish the visual groundwork for the product’s long-term development.

As the Technical Artist on a small, high-performing strike team, you will build early 3D blockouts, prototype scene compositions, implement lightweight animations and VFX, and define the workflows that enable scalable content creation. You will operate directly inside the game engine, leveraging your experience to accelerate delivery, reduce iteration time, and create a strong foundation for future art direction and team expansion. This role will report to the product engineering lead.

Responsibilities

Block out early game scenes in engine, establishing spatial layout and camera framing for rapid gameplay prototyping.
Create simple 3D models, greybox assets, and placeholder animation/VFX to validate gameplay interactions, timing, and sequencing.
Implement and integrate art assets directly in the engine, including animations, VFX, particles, lighting, and UI-related visual elements.
Develop tools and scripts that accelerate prototyping, asset import, rig workflows, and iteration speed for the entire pod.
Collaborate with engineers on scene wiring and prototype actions, ensuring content integration is stable, performant, and technically sound.
Surface visual/technical risks early, proposing pragmatic solutions that enable the team to avoid rework and maintain rapid velocity.
Create temp cinematics, video assets, or animatics as needed to communicate design intent, user flows, or presentation direction.
Support future scalability, ensuring the early pipelines and scene structures can be cleanly picked up by a larger art team during full production.

Required Qualifications

5+ years as a Technical Artist in games or real-time engines.
Professional experience implementing assets directly inside Unity or Unreal (animation, VFX, particles, lighting, shaders).
Experience creating 3D models, greybox assets, and lightweight prototypes for gameplay or layout validation.
Strong scripting ability in C# and/or Python for tool creation and pipeline automation.
Experience optimizing content, solving cross-discipline integration issues, and improving real-time performance.
Demonstrated ability to partner effectively with engineers, designers, and artists in a fast-moving environment.
Ability to reason about the intersection of art, gameplay intention, and engine constraints balancing clarity, performance, and production speed.

Desired Qualifications

Experience working in small, high-velocity strike teams or pre-production prototyping environments.
Proficiency in Maya for modeling, rigging, and animation workflows.
Knowledge of shader authoring, texture optimization, or procedural workflows.
Ability to establish early art direction guardrails and communicate visual concepts through blockouts, animatics, or motion tests.
Experience creating technical documentation, templates, or onboarding materials for future art teams.
Strong understanding of performance constraints for cross-platform (PC + mobile) real-time content.

For this role, you'll find success through craft expertise, a collaborative spirit, and decision-making that prioritizes the delight of players. We will be looking at your past studies, experience, and your personal relationship with games. If you embody player empathy and care about players' experiences, this could be your role!

Our Perks:

Riot focuses on work/life balance, shown by our open paid time off policy and other perks such as flexible work schedules. We offer medical, dental, and life insurance, parental leave for you, your spouse/domestic partner, and children, and a 401k with company match. Check out our benefits pages for more information.

At Riot Games, we put players first. That mission drives every decision in our quest to create games and experiences that make it better to be a player. Whether you’re working directly on a new player-facing experience or you’re supporting the company as a whole, everyone at Riot is part of our mission. And just like in our games, we’re better when we work together. Our goal is to create collaborative teams where you are empowered to bring your unique perspective everyday. If that sounds like the kind of place you want to work, we’re looking forward to your application.

It’s our policy to provide equal employment opportunity for all applicants and members of Riot Games, Inc. Riot Games makes reasonable accommodations for handicapped and disabled Rioters and does not unlawfully discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, national origin, age, handicap, veteran status, marital status, criminal history, or any other category protected by applicable federal and state law. We consider for employment all qualified applicants, including those with criminal histories, in a manner consistent with applicable federal, state and local law, including the California Fair Chance Act, the City of Los Angeles Fair Chance Initiative for Hiring Ordinance, the Los Angeles County Fair Chance Ordinance for Employers, the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance, and the Washington Fair Chance Act.

Per the Los Angeles County Fair Chance Ordinance, the following core duties may create a basis for disqualifying candidates with relevant criminal histories:

Safeguarding confidential and sensitive Company data
Communication with others, including Rioters and third parties such as vendors, and/or players, including minors
Accessing Company assets, secure digital systems, and networks
Ensuring a safe interactive environment for players and other Rioters

These duties are directly related to essential operations, safety, trust, and compliance obligations within our organization. Please note that job duties may evolve based on business needs and additional responsibilities may be assigned as necessary to maintain operational efficiency and security.