Expert Lighting Artist (Game Development)

TL;DR

Expert Lighting Artist (Game Development): Creating gameplay and cinematic lighting, skies, and cloud assets for high-fidelity first-person shooter environments with an accent on physically based rendering, mood, composition, and visual storytelling. Focus on designing efficient lighting workflows, collaborating with rendering engineers, solving runtime and disk-budget constraints, and mentoring lighting artists.

Location: Hybrid position based in the Toronto studio; permanent remote work is not available. The role collaborates with teams in the United States, Australia, and the United Kingdom.

Salary: $99,200–$183,520 annual base pay in the United States, plus potential incentive compensation.

Company

hirify.global is a video game studio known for developing the Call of Duty franchise and is part of Activision, wholly owned by Microsoft.

What you will do

• Create gameplay and in-game cinematic lighting based on Art Director guidance.
• Build sky domes, cloud assets, lighting assets, and workflows that meet runtime and disk-budget requirements.
• Collaborate with Character, VFX, Environment Art, rendering engineering, leads, and directors.
• Identify production risks, improve the lighting pipeline, and establish team best practices.
• Apply advanced lighting, color grading, post effects, and rendering techniques to enhance mood and visual quality.
• Mentor lighting artists and help maintain a creative, collaborative standard of excellence.

Requirements

• 12+ years of experience in a game-industry lighting role.
• Advanced knowledge of physically based lighting, lighting theory, color space, exposure, reflections, composition, and natural light.
• Strong working knowledge of Maya and Photoshop or equivalent tools.
• Experience with Unreal, Unity, or proprietary game engines, including PBR, HDR lighting, and ray tracing or path tracing.
• Proven ability to lead and inspire teams, collaborate across disciplines, and work independently.
• Ability to use AI as a development tool and understanding of industry-standard rendering concepts and processes.

Nice to have

• Experience with scripting or programming languages.
• Experience with Houdini.
• Knowledge of photography principles and image correction techniques.
• Experience playing Call of Duty or similar first-person shooter games.

Culture & Benefits

• Hybrid work schedule combining in-studio and remote workdays.
• Structured training, regular one-to-one meetings, weekly team meetings, and close communication with adjacent teams.
• Medical, dental, vision, health spending, disability, and life insurance programs.
• 401(k) with company match, tuition reimbursement, paid holidays, vacation, sick time, parental leave, and bereavement leave.
• Mental health, wellbeing, fitness, game discounts, and other voluntary benefit programs.