Lead VFX Artist – Hearthstone | Irvine, CA

Your Mission 

Pull up a chair and join us by the hearth. As the Lead VFX Artist on Hearthstone you will work with art leadership to help build the vision of VFX art across our live, feature and project developments. You and the team you help grow will be a champion of that vision; helping to execute it alongside multiple other art disciplines. If you are a proactive problem solver who loves creative challenges and growing solid VFX teams, this is the role for you. 

This role is anticipated to be a hybrid work position, with some work on-site and some work-from-home. The potential home studio for this role is Irvine, CA. 

Responsibilities: 

Priorities can often change in a fast-paced environment like ours, so this role includes, but is not limited to, the following responsibilities: 

• Be a champion of the VFX art vision for the Hearthstone team. 

• Collaborate with design, engineering, and different art teams to solve creative problems.  

• Partner with other leads and directors to meet visual, technical and design standards. 

• Guide the Hearthstone VFX efforts holistically across prototypes, features and project development. 

• Use previsualization and concept art to help develop and visualize new projects. 

• Consult on pipeline development and help define best practices to inform scalable production scenarios. 

• Support team with hands on visual effects projects and assignments. 

• Grow and develop an extremely talented VFX team. Review their work on technical and aesthetic bases while staying aware of their workloads, including supporting the team’s work/life balance. 

• Partner with VFX team to help evolve their career development and the future development of the team in service of Hearthstone’s long-term goals. 

• Refine old technology and processes as well as develop new technologies based on everything we know as a team. 

Minimum Requirements: 

Experience 

• 3 years' experience leading a team in game development environment. 

• 6+ Years in game development or comparable creative field. 

Knowledge & Skills 

• Expertise at leveraging a variety of tools for real time VFX creation including Photoshop, Maya, Unity and in game FX systems. 

• Ability to identify and solve technical challenges VFX pipeline for game features and projects. 

• A superior eye for Lighting, Value, color, details, motion and timing and an understanding of how this work together to support gameplay through VFX. 

• Experience with technical setup, implementation and troubleshooting of VFX in Unity with performance in mind. 

• Ability to demonstrate a high-level awareness of game design process, and ability to support design goals through visual brainstorming, concepts, pre-viz and final delivery of VFX assets. 

• Impeccable leadership skills applied to individual and team management scenarios. 

• Excellent interpersonal skills and a proven collaborative nature applied to inter-discipline interactions and team-wide process improvements. 

• Strong team and individual leadership to mentor, motivate, collaborate with, and guide FX Artists while amplifying their strengths. 

• A positive attitude paired with the ability to give and receive feedback that elevates the excellence of those around you and their work. 

Extra Points 

• Rigging, Animation, and/or VFX experience. 

• Houdini, Substance Painter/Designer experience. 

• Concept and Illustration background 

• A passion for games in general, along with a solid understanding of World of Warcraft and Hearthstone. 

Your Platform 

Best known for iconic video game universes including Warcraft®, Overwatch®, Diablo®, and StarCraft®, Blizzard Entertainment, Inc. (www.blizzard.com), a division of Activision Blizzard, which was acquired by Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT), is a premier developer and publisher of entertainment experiences. Blizzard Entertainment has created some of the industry’s most critically acclaimed and genre-defining games over the last 30 years, with a track record that includes multiple Game of the Year awards. Blizzard Entertainment engages tens of millions of players around the world with titles available on PC via Battle.net®, Xbox, PlayStation, Nintendo Switch, iOS, and Android. 

Our World 

Activision Blizzard, Inc., is one of the world's largest and most successful interactive entertainment companies and is at the intersection of media, technology and entertainment. We are home to some of the most beloved entertainment franchises including Call of Duty®, World of Warcraft®, Overwatch®, Diablo®, Candy Crush™ and Bubble Witch™. Our combined entertainment network delights hundreds of millions of monthly active users in 196 countries, making us the largest gaming network on the planet! 

Our ability to build immersive and innovative worlds is only enhanced by diverse teams working in an inclusive environment.  We aspire to have a culture where everyone can thrive in order to connect and engage the world through epic entertainment. We provide a suite of benefits that promote physical, emotional and financial well-being for ‘Every World’ - we’ve got our employees covered! 

The videogame industry and therefore our business is fast-paced and will continue to evolve. As such, the duties and responsibilities of this role may be changed as directed by the Company at any time to promote and support our business and relationships with industry partners. 

We love hearing from anyone who is enthusiastic about changing the games industry. Not sure you meet all qualifications? Let us decide! Research shows that women and members of other under-represented groups tend to not apply to jobs when they think they may not meet every qualification, when, in fact, they often do! We are committed to creating a diverse and inclusive environment and strongly encourage you to apply. 

We are committed to working with and providing reasonable assistance to individuals with physical and mental disabilities. If you are a disabled individual requiring an accommodation to apply for an open position, please email your request to accommodationrequests@activisionblizzard.com. General employment questions cannot be accepted or processed here. Thank you for your interest.  

We are an equal opportunity employer and value diversity at our company. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, age, marital status, veteran status, or disability status, among other characteristics.