At Riot, Senior Technical Artists build the systems, tools, and workflows that help artists create high-quality content efficiently and sustainably. In this role, you'll combine hands-on real-time VFX craft with technical problem-solving to turn creative and gameplay goals into reusable, scalable solutions that support artists, designers, and engineers.

As a Senior VFX Technical Artist on an unpublished R&D; product, you'll help establish and evolve the VFX systems and content pipelines that bring the experience to life. You'll own meaningful technical problems end to end, from prototyping Niagara-based solutions and artist-facing tools to developing Houdini workflows, documenting best practices, and improving performance and production reliability.

You will report into the Technical Art Manager of the team.

Responsibilities:

- Own and evolve scalable VFX systems, tools, libraries, and content pipelines in Unreal Engine and Niagara.

- Build reusable, modular, and parameterized effects and workflows that reduce one-off production, support rapid iteration, and empower artists to create varied content from a maintainable foundation.

- Partner with VFX Art, Design, Engineering, and Technical Art to translate creative and gameplay needs into robust technical solutions, advocating for artist workflows and clear player-facing readability.

- Develop artist-facing tools, scripts, and automation, including Houdini-based procedural workflows and integrations between DCC applications and real-time content pipelines.

- Work hands-on in Unreal Engine to prototype and validate systems using Niagara modules and Scratchpad, Blueprint, and material workflows.

- Profile and optimize effects for visual quality, gameplay clarity, memory, and runtime performance, helping establish practical budgets for high effect density and resource-constrained scenarios.

- Maintain documentation, standards, and production support practices that make VFX workflows easier to adopt, troubleshoot, and improve over time.





Required Qualifications:

- Senior-level professional experience as a Technical Artist, VFX Technical Artist, or closely related role in games or real-time content production.

- Advanced hands-on Unreal Engine experience, including Niagara systems, Niagara modules and Scratchpad, Blueprint, and material authoring or Material Graphs.

- Strong scripting and automation skills for artist-facing tools and content workflows, with the ability to work productively in Python, Blueprint, or comparable scripting environments.

- Hands-on pipeline development experience, including procedural workflows, asset generation, and integration with real-time content pipelines.

- Proven experience designing or maintaining reusable, modular, and parameterized VFX systems, libraries, or production workflows.

- Solid understanding of real-time VFX readability, profiling, optimization, and performance budgeting, with the ability to balance visual quality and runtime constraints.

- Demonstrated ability to collaborate across Art, Design, and Engineering, communicate technical trade-offs clearly, and support artists through tool iteration and problem-solving.

Desired Qualifications:

- Experience supporting large-scale multiplayer or live-service content pipelines, where consistency, scalability, and maintainability are central production concerns.

- Experience developing procedural content workflows or reusable generation systems in Houdini, Unreal, or related tools.

- Experience with streaming, resource, memory, or workload optimization for content-rich real-time experiences.

- Familiarity with shader or engine-level development, including HLSL, C++, or comparable low-level graphics and runtime technologies.

- A portfolio or reel that demonstrates technical breakdowns, reusable systems, artist-facing tools, pipeline improvements, and the impact of your work on content production.

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

📌 Senior VFX Technical Artist (Sydney)
🏢 Riot Games
📍 Sydney