Lead Lighting Artist

Responsibilities

• Lead and share the lighting vision for the game in collaboration with the Art Directors and your Lighting Experts.
• Manage real-time lighting for environments, cinematics, and other assets.
• Help specify and develop lighting systems for time of day, weather, and dynamic events using UE5 and Lumen.
• Drive the growth and development of the Lighting team through mentoring, coaching, and regular feedback.
• Collaborate with team experts to establish lighting standards and documentation, ensuring consistent quality throughout the team.
• Mentor lighting artists and effectively delegate tasks within the department.
• Collaborate closely with Art Direction, Technical Art, and Level Design teams to deliver high-quality lighting that enhances the player experience and aligns with the artistic vision.
• Collaborate with Technical Art to write and enforce guidelines that help deliver light in the right technical specifications.
• Participate in conversations to provide visually compelling, optimized and performant light scenarios.

Candidate Requirements

• Proven experience as a Senior or Lead Lighting Artist on AAA or equivalent game projects.
• Strong proficiency with Unreal Engine 5 dynamic lighting, including Lumen, HDR/SDR pipelines, and related technologies.
• Ability to create and understand realistic lighting based on physical behavior, color theory, and composition.
• Experience mentoring artists and providing constructive, actionable feedback.
• Ability to balance artistic quality with technical performance.
• Communication skills to work with Design, Engineering, and VFX teams to explain lighting decisions.
• A portfolio demonstrating high-quality dynamic lighting work created in Unreal Engine for gameplay or cinematics.

Personal qualities

• Strong artistic eye.
• Strong leadership presence, comfortable setting direction, providing constructive feedback, and maintaining a high-quality bar without micromanaging.
• Patient, constructive mentor; genuinely invested in growing other artists' skills.
• Collaborative, works well across teams without ego or territorial friction.
• Receptive to feedback and iteration.
• Calm under pressure.
• Highly organized and reliable in planning, estimating, prioritizing, and delegating work across the team.
• Strong attention to detail and consistency across a large, evolving game world.

Will be a plus

• Previous experience leading or managing Lighting teams.
• Knowledge of lighting optimization techniques and performance budgeting.
• Proactive mindset with genuine curiosity about new technologies and rendering techniques.

Work format

• Office-based position in Prague.
• Office-based position in Kyiv.
• Remote work.

Hiring steps

• Screening interview.
• Technical interview.
• Test assignment (optional).