Technical Artist - Optimizing AA UE5 Game for Cloud Streaming

Accountabilities

• Profile GPU performance and memory usage using Unreal Insights, RenderDoc, and other relevant profiling tools.


• Analyze profiling data to prioritize optimization work and verify that each change produces measurable performance improvements without unacceptable visual degradation.


• Identify bottlenecks that fall outside the art and content scope and provide engineering teams with relevant profiling data for further investigation.


• Optimize shaders, materials, overdraw, draw calls, texture memory, and other content-related sources of GPU and memory cost.


• Tune Lumen, Nanite, and Virtual Shadow Maps to achieve appropriate performance within target platform budgets.


• Create and refine LODs and simplify materials where global engine or scalability settings are insufficient.


• Preserve the intended visual identity throughout the optimization process, including outlines, shading, post-processing effects, lighting, atmosphere, and fog.


• Evaluate how line work, fine details, and other visual elements respond to cloud streaming and video encoding, and adjust content where necessary.


• Define appropriate content budgets and collaborate with engineering teams on scalability settings and performance targets.


• Build Unreal Engine editor tools, validation scripts, and checks that help identify content exceeding defined performance or memory budgets.


• Proactively identify visual and performance risks and communicate potential trade-offs to internal and external stakeholders.


• Collaborate with Unreal engineers, technical artists, UX designers, QA, and production to coordinate optimization priorities and deliverables.


• Keep optimization decisions focused on measured trade-offs, maintaining visual quality and readability rather than applying indiscriminate reductions.

• At least 4 years of professional experience as a Technical Artist in game development, including work on large or complex projects.


• At least 3 years of hands-on production experience with Unreal Engine 4 or 5.


• Proven experience profiling and optimizing game content using GPU and memory profiling tools in production environments.


• Strong knowledge of materials, textures, LODs, lighting, VFX, animation, and real-time rendering workflows.


• Hands-on production experience with Lumen, Nanite, and Virtual Shadow Maps.


• Strong understanding of shader and material optimization, overdraw reduction, draw-call management, and texture memory optimization.


• Experience developing Unreal Engine editor tools, validation scripts, or similar production-support tooling.


• Experience using Perforce or a comparable version-control system.


• Ability to clearly explain technical, visual, and performance trade-offs to non-technical stakeholders.


• Strong written and spoken English communication skills.


• Ability to work independently, prioritize optimization work using objective profiling data, and operate effectively within a multidisciplinary remote team.


• Experience optimizing stylized, non-photorealistic, or heavily post-processed visuals is advantageous.


• Understanding of how cloud streaming and video encoding can affect perceived visual quality is a plus.


• Experience porting or adapting games for lower-spec hardware is advantageous.


• Experience with Unreal Engine 5.5 or later is a plus.


• Experience working with outsourced development teams or external partners is desirable.


• Experience shipping at least one AAA or high-quality AA game is advantageous.

• Approximately 4-month remote contract engagement.


• Remote working opportunity open to candidates in Europe, with working arrangements designed for collaboration across international time zones.


• Preferred working hours of 8:00 AM to 5:00 PM US Central Time; European candidates should provide at least four hours of overlap from 8:00 AM to 12:00 PM US Central Time.


• Opportunity to work on a large, content-heavy, choice-driven narrative game built with Unreal Engine 5.


• Opportunity to solve complex GPU, memory, rendering, content optimization, and cloud-streaming challenges.


• Collaboration with experienced Unreal engineers, technical artists, UX designers, QA professionals, and production specialists.


• Exposure to advanced real-time rendering technologies, including Lumen, Nanite, and Virtual Shadow Maps.


• Opportunity to contribute to a distinctive stylized visual experience while working within demanding hardware and platform constraints.


• Professional and collaborative remote working environment.


• Opportunity to make a measurable impact on game performance and visual quality within a specialized technical art role.

This listing is from Lever. View original listing ↗