Senior Technical Artist, Environment - Unpublished R&D Product

As a Senior Technical Artist on the MMO team, you will develop the systems, tools, and workflows that enable the creation of expansive, diverse, and evolving environments across Runeterra. This world is not a static backdrop—it is a living, responsive element of the player experience. Your work will empower the environment art team to build at scale while maintaining visual fidelity, performance, and creative flexibility for years to come.

As a Senior Environment Technical Artist, you'll partner closely with Environment Art, Tech Art, and Engineering to develop robust procedural workflows, modular asset systems, and tools that make large-scale, high-fidelity worldbuilding not just possible—but efficient. This role is a mix of toolmaker, collaborator, and artist. You’ll work with artists and designers to transform creative vision into performant, scalable content that supports exploration, gameplay, and immersion across a sprawling open world.

Responsibilities:

• Build and maintain procedural and targeted tools that support scalable environment asset creation in Houdini, Unreal, and other pipelines.

• Author and maintain tools that enable modular workflows, from terrain generation and biome setup to foliage systems and world composition.

• Contribute hands-on to worldbuilding—working directly in-engine to prototype and improve asset fidelity, modular kits, and visual consistency across biomes.

• Partner with Environment Artists and Level Designers to ensure tools meet creative needs while driving performance, reusability, and efficiency.

• Develop and maintain Unreal Engine 5 environment tools, including landscape systems, foliage, spline tools, material workflows.

• Provide environment-focused technical support and problem-solving, helping unblock teams and identifying improvements in real-time workflows.

• Proactively identify bottlenecks in content pipelines and propose systemic, scalable solutions that align with the game’s long-term needs.

• Contribute to the visual and technical evolution of the world, ensuring our tools keep pace with an ever-expanding ecosystem of environments, systems, and gameplay needs.

• Proactively identify tech debt and pipeline inefficiencies, explore future technology, and drive strategic solutions that prepare us for the long road of live service MMO development.

Required Qualifications:

• 5+ years as a Technical Artist or Environment TD in games or related industries, with a focus on environment content development.

• Proven experience with Houdini or equivalent procedural systems used in games for terrain, layout, or asset generation.

• Strong proficiency in 3D modeling, texturing, and lighting, with working knowledge of tools like Maya, Blender, 3ds Max, ZBrush, etc.

• Experience scripting in Python, Blueprint, or similar languages to build tools or automate workflows.

• Deep familiarity with Unreal Engine 5’s worldbuilding tools, including PCG, the material editor, world partition, and level streaming systems.

• Demonstrated ability to work cross-discipline and support artists, designers, and engineers through technical collaboration and tool iteration.

Desired Qualifications:

• Experience building or supporting large-scale open worlds, MMOs, or multiplayer games with persistent or procedural environments.

• Experience using Substance Designer, Houdini Copernicus, or other procedural texture/material generation tools.

• Familiarity with cross-discipline workflows, especially integrating art pipelines with level design, gameplay systems, and engine constraints.

• A strong eye for environmental storytelling, with an interest in translating narrative and gameplay needs into scalable technical solutions.

Portfolio Requirements:

Please include a portfolio or reel that showcases:

• Examples of procedural tools or workflows you’ve developed (e.g. terrain generation, biome tools, spline tools).

• Demonstrable in-engine worldbuilding work, including asset integration.

• Any documentation or breakdowns that highlight how your tools or tech contributed to scale, speed, or creative flexibility.

For this role, you'll find success through craft expertise, a collaborative spirit, and decision-making that prioritizes the delight of players. We will be looking at your past studies, experience, and your personal relationship with games. If you embody player empathy and care about players' experiences, this could be your role!

Our Perks:

Riot focuses on work/life balance, shown by our open paid time off policy and other perks such as flexible work schedules. We offer medical, dental, and life insurance, parental leave for you, your spouse/domestic partner, and children, and a 401k with company match. Check out our benefits pages for more information.

At Riot Games, we put players first. That mission drives every decision in our quest to create games and experiences that make it better to be a player. Whether you’re working directly on a new player-facing experience or you’re supporting the company as a whole, everyone at Riot is part of our mission. And just like in our games, we’re better when we work together. Our goal is to create collaborative teams where you are empowered to bring your unique perspective everyday. If that sounds like the kind of place you want to work, we’re looking forward to your application.

It’s our policy to provide equal employment opportunity for all applicants and members of Riot Games, Inc. Riot Games makes reasonable accommodations for handicapped and disabled Rioters and does not unlawfully discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, national origin, age, handicap, veteran status, marital status, criminal history, or any other category protected by applicable federal and state law. We consider for employment all qualified applicants, including those with criminal histories, in a manner consistent with applicable federal, state and local law, including the California Fair Chance Act, the City of Los Angeles Fair Chance Initiative for Hiring Ordinance, the Los Angeles County Fair Chance Ordinance for Employers, the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance, and the Washington Fair Chance Act.

Per the Los Angeles County Fair Chance Ordinance, the following core duties may create a basis for disqualifying candidates with relevant criminal histories:

• Safeguarding confidential and sensitive Company data

• Communication with others, including Rioters and third parties such as vendors, and/or players, including minors

• Accessing Company assets, secure digital systems, and networks

• Ensuring a safe interactive environment for players and other Rioters

These duties are directly related to essential operations, safety, trust, and compliance obligations within our organization. Please note that job duties may evolve based on business needs and additional responsibilities may be assigned as necessary to maintain operational efficiency and security.