Senior

Senior II Lighting Artist – Unannounced Game | Irvine, CA or Albany, NY

Activision Blizzard

Irvine, US, Albany · Hybrid

Team Name: Unannounced Project

Job Title:

Requisition ID:

R026795

Job Description:

At Blizzard, we craft genre‑defining games and legendary worlds for all to share. Through unparalleled creativity and storytelling, we create immersive universes and iconic characters that are beloved across platforms, borders, backgrounds, and generations – only made possible by building a work environment that cultivates the artistry of game development and unleashes the aspirations of our people.

We are looking for a Senior II Lighting Artist to help craft a new, unannounced game for Blizzard. As a senior individual contributor, you will support and develop all aspects of lighting across characters, environments, and cinematics. You thrive in the technical and artistic balance of photometric lighting, cameras, lenses, and post‑processing, and enjoy diving deep into topics such as the exposure triangle and inverse‑square falloff. You are comfortable operating in a dynamic environment, navigating fluid deadlines and changing priorities with purpose.

Location Fixed

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 or Albany, NY.

Responsibilities

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

Partner with Directors and Leads to design and implement high‑quality character and environment lighting in Unreal Engine.
Collaborate closely across disciplines to ensure lighting solutions support both aesthetic goals and gameplay readability.
Treat every frame as a composition, using atmospherics, color, light, post‑processing, and shadow to enhance mood and storytelling.
Demonstrate expertise in cinematic global lighting and atmospheric looks, including the creation of lighting Blueprints and light functions.
Work with Technical Art and Engineering teams to maintain performance targets and diagnose lighting‑related artifacts and issues.
Contribute to lighting workflows, documentation, and best practices that scale across the team.

Experience

12 years of professional experience working on AAA game‑development teams in a lighting or closely related role.
Confirmed experience shipping at least one major title in a relevant capacity.
Proven experience delivering high‑quality lighting solutions in collaboration with art, design, and engineering partners.

Knowledge and Skills

In‑depth knowledge of AAA game engines with a strong understanding of multiple approaches to lighting and look development.
Extensive Unreal Engine experience, including lighting channels, Lumen, Virtual Shadow Maps (VSM), hardware ray tracing (HWRT), and MegaLights.
Expert‑level understanding of the interaction between physically‑based rendering and lighting.
Superb grasp of color theory, composition, and visual storytelling.
Strong ability to analyze, debug, and optimize lighting for both visual quality and performance.

Key Attributes

A team‑oriented approach to your work, with a strong emphasis on collaboration and cross‑disciplinary partnership.
The ability to inspire and elevate others through craft excellence and an enthusiastic approach to game development.
A self‑motivated, proactive problem‑solver who can independently drive complex lighting tasks to completion.
Strong communication and documentation skills.

Extra Points

Experience creating and maintaining post‑process materials.
Strong illustration or photography background.
Experience working through early‑development and R&D phases of a project.
Passion for playing a wide variety of video games.

Required Application Materials

Portfolio showcasing lighting work, including detailed breakdowns that demonstrate artistic intent, technical execution, and problem‑solving.

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.

Rewards We provide a suite of benefits that promote physical, emotional and financial well-being for ‘Every World’ - we’ve got our employees covered! Subject to eligibility requirements, the Company offers comprehensive benefits including:

Medical, dental, vision, health savings account or health reimbursement account, healthcare spending accounts, dependent care spending accounts, life and AD&D insurance, disability insurance;
401(k) with Company match, tuition reimbursement, charitable donation matching;
Paid holidays and vacation, paid sick time, floating holidays, compassion and bereavement leaves, parental leave;
Mental health & wellbeing programs, fitness programs, free and discounted games, and a variety of other voluntary benefit programs like supplemental life & disability, legal service, ID protection, rental insurance, and others;
If the Company requires that you move geographic locations for the job, then you may also be eligible for relocation assistance.

Eligibility to participate in these benefits may vary for part time and temporary full-time employees and interns with the Company. You can learn more by visiting https://www.benefitsforeveryworld.com/.

In the U.S., the standard base pay range for this role is $97,200.00 - $179,900.00 Annual. These values reflect the expected base pay range of new hires across all U.S. locations. Ultimately, your specific range and offer will be based on several factors, including relevant experience, performance, and work location. Your Talent Professional can share this role’s range details for your local geography during the hiring process. In addition to a competitive base pay, employees in this role may be eligible for incentive compensation. Incentive compensation is not guaranteed. While we strive to provide competitive offers to successful candidates, new hire compensation is negotiable.