Senior Environment Artist
Kabam
Full-time
On-site
Vancouver, Canada
At Kabam, we’re constantly raising the bar of excellence in free-to-play gaming. We hire for passion and diversity so that we can triumph in our collective skill. Our teams are made up of a fusion of personalities and interests bound together by a collaborative nature, fun-loving culture, and a drive to do what it takes to make great games. And this is where you come in…
We're looking for a creative and dynamic Senior Environment Artist to join our team! You'll gain hands-on experience leading the creation of high-quality, highly stylized 2.5D environments for our RPG game, overseeing the full process from ideation through final assembly in the engine. Combining strong creative vision with technical expertise, you will set the visual direction for environments that expertly blend 2D and 3D techniques to create open, explorable spaces. As both an artist and a problem solver, you will guide a small team, collaborating with engineers to balance artistry and optimization, and ensure the successful integration of living environments that incorporate motion, atmosphere, and VFX to bring our game worlds to life.
This role is a full-time, on-site position based 5 days a week at our Downtown Vancouver studio.
In this role, you can expect to:
- Ideation & Vision
- Create 2D sketches, studies, and mockups to explore layouts, mood, and composition.
- Build moodboards and reference libraries that communicate a clear environment vision.
- Share concepts across disciplines and integrate feedback into environment direction.
- Define mock gameplay layouts prior to full production.
- Illustration & Asset Creation
- Paint high-quality, highly stylized 2D assets, from backdrops to ground textures and props.
- Establish and maintain a cohesive visual direction to ensure consistent and reproducible results.
- Deliver work that demonstrates mastery of composition, colour, and mood.
- Technical Art & Integration
- Guide or directly assemble environments in Unity, integrating 2D assets into 2D or hybrid 2D/3D scenes.
- Optimize assets for memory and performance on mobile and other target platforms.
- Solve challenges in realizing dynamic elements such as water, fog, and atmospheric VFX.
- Collaboration & Leadership
- Lead, mentor, and provide feedback to a small team of internal and contract artists.
- Collaborate with engineers to integrate assets and resolve technical challenges.
- Partner with animation and VFX to realize living environments with motion and atmosphere.
- Work with design to align environments with gameplay constraints and narrative goals.
- Best Practices & Pipeline
- Uphold standards for asset management, version control, and naming conventions.
- Document and improve best practices for environment production.
- Identify opportunities to improve pipelines and collaborate with technical teams on tool development.
To be successful in this role, your background includes:
- Bachelor’s degree, certificate, or diploma in a related field.
- A strong portfolio demonstrating high-quality, highly stylized 2D and 3D environment work, including illustration, painting, and layout design. Must show excellence in composition, set decoration, colour and value sensibilities, and the ability to convey mood and atmosphere.
- 5+ years working in console or PC game development (mobile game development is a
- plus).
- Experience working with Unity or a comparable game engine.
- Demonstrated ability to prepare and implement optimized 2D assets into a game engine.
- Strong understanding of file organization, resolution management, and performance constraints.
- Technically literate and able to identify and resolve quality and performance issues related to 2D environments.
- Expert in Photoshop and Substance tools (Painter/Designer) for texture and material creation; proficiency with additional 2D tools or illustration software is a plus.
- A proactive, collaborative, and positive attitude to the team.
Our success is due to the hard work of our people. We share our success with our people through flexible benefits and reward programs, sweet swag, snacks, and more. Here’s a look at some of the support we provide our people:
- Extended Health Coverage: effective day one, no waiting period! Our benefits cover health, dental, life, and disability, and extended paramedical services such as vision care, mental health practitioners, massage, physiotherapy, acupuncture, and much more.
- Flexible Spending Accounts: our benefits include commuter benefits, additional healthcare spending, and dependent care.
- 401K Matching: everyone retires eventually, and we help our people save for their futures with a contribution matching program for their 401K.
- PTO and Parental Leave: we offer paid parental leave, unlimited paid time off, paid time off for volunteering, sick leave, and holiday closures.
- Employee and Family Assistance Program: this program provides crisis management support, immediate mental health care, and generalized support for emotional, mental, and financial well-being.
- Learning and growth: we encourage people to grow both personally and professionally, and support this through regular lunch & learns and a stipend to a LifeBalanced account, which can be applied to learning as well as other personal expenses.
- Pay transparency: we share with employees the pay range their role falls within and clear career maps to determine how they can grow within their role or level-up to a promotion.
- Cool spaces: our offices are in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Vancouver, Montreal, Prince Edward Island, and Seoul. Whether it’s trying new local eats while enjoying the view in downtown SF or DTLA - we want our people to feel like their time spent in office is worthwhile!
- Giving back: Kabammers have a dedicated paid day off every year to volunteer to a cause close to their hearts. Some teams even band together for group volunteer days off-site!
- Hybrid Work: Kabammers typically spend at least two days per week in office. We believe in blending in-office collaboration with the freedom of remote work, and want everyone to have flexibility while fostering strong connections.
$98,400 - $123,000 a year
The typical hiring range listed above is specific to candidates located in Vancouver. The salary will be determined based on your knowledge, skills and competencies, and you’ll have room to grow after you join!
If you’re interested in the position but your expectations don’t fully align with the provided range, we still encourage you to apply! Considerations may be made based on your experience level.
Excited by this opportunity? Kabam is dedicated to growing our diverse and inclusive workforce, so if your past experience doesn’t perfectly match the listed requirements we encourage you to apply anyways - you could be a great fit for this or other positions.
We invite you to apply now and start the conversation with us. Together, we can create and support some of the best games ever made and entertain the world!
About Kabam
Kabam is a world leader in developing entertaining, immersive, and highly social multiplayer games, bringing high-quality graphics, next-generation technology, and revolutionary gameplay to players around the world.
Kabam’s games, Marvel Contest of Champions, Shop Titans, and more have generated hundreds of millions of downloads and have received multiple awards including Apple’s Editor’s Choice and Google Play’s Best Game of the Year.
Founded in 2006, Kabam has studios and offices in Vancouver, Montreal and Charlottetown in Canada, Los Angeles and San Francisco in the United States, and in Seoul, South Korea. Kabam is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Netmarble Games.
Kabam is an Equal Employment Opportunity employer committed to building a diverse and equitable workplace, and inclusive environment for all existing and potential employees. Employment decisions are based on candidate qualifications and business need, not race, color, ancestry, place of origin, age, sex (including pregnancy), gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, political belief, religion, creed, marital or family status, medical condition, genetic information, physical or mental disability, military or veteran status, prior criminal conviction or any other protected class in accordance with federal, state or provincial and local laws and ordinances. Accommodations will be provided as requested by candidates taking part in all aspects of the selection process.