Senior Unreal Lighting Artist (Gamedev)

TL;DR

Senior Unreal Lighting Artist (Gamedev): Strengthening and unifying lighting quality across multiple Unreal Engine projects with an accent on workflow gaps, elevating visual standards, and ensuring lighting consistency. Focus on actionable solutions for PC and console performance, and providing constructive feedback to distributed teams.

Location: Remote - Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Maine, Missouri, New Jersey, Nevada, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas, Washington, and Wyoming (Los Angeles area strongly preferred)

Salary: $115,000 – $155,000 Annually

Company

Snail Games strives to create the new high bar for gameplay experience in online gaming.

What you will do

• Define and elevate lighting standards across multiple Unreal Engine projects.
• Monitor cross-project lighting quality and proactively identify visual or technical risks.
• Establish scalable lighting workflows that support different rendering approaches.
• Ensure lighting supports gameplay readability and narrative tone.
• Lead lighting optimization efforts for PC and console performance.
• Provide direct, constructive feedback to distributed teams (US, Poland, Suzhou).

Requirements

• Proven experience delivering high-quality lighting in Unreal Engine (UE4 or UE5).
• Strong understanding of real-time rendering principles and performance optimization.
• Experience working across different visual styles (realistic, stylized, fantasy, sci-fi).
• Demonstrated ability to identify workflow inefficiencies and implement improvements.
• Comfort operating independently and proposing actionable solutions in ambiguous environments.
• Ability to provide clear feedback and influence cross-functional teams.

Nice to have

• Experience supporting multi-project or multi-team environments.
• Familiarity with Nanite, Lumen, and World Partition workflows.
• Experience mentoring junior or mid-level lighting artists.
• Strong understanding of color theory and cinematic lighting principles.
• Experience collaborating closely with VFX and technical art teams.

Culture & Benefits

• True focus on work/life balance.
• Paid company holidays, vacation, and separate sick leave.
• Medical, dental, vision, and Life/LTD.
• 401k with company match.