Epic Games

Principal Environment Artist

Epic Games$125K — $150K *
Cary, NC 27513In-Person
Consumer Technology
8 - 10 years of experience
Job Overview by Ladders

Qualifications

  • Bachelor's degree or 10+ years of experience in creating 3D environments for video games
  • Experience in developing production-ready environment assets, materials, and scenes
  • Proficiency in Unreal Engine for world-building and content optimization
  • Expertise in optimizing real-time content across various hardware platforms
  • Familiarity with 3D modeling tools (Maya, 3ds Max, Blender) and texture authoring software (Substance Painter, Substance Designer)
  • Experience in workflow documentation and environment art quality standards
  • Demonstrated ability to mentor and provide feedback to other artists

Responsibilities

  • Create benchmark-quality environment assets and scenes for Fortnite
  • Establish standards for composition, lighting, and materials in environment art
  • Develop scalable workflows to enhance art quality and production efficiency
  • Collaborate with Technical Art and Engineering to refine content creation pipelines
  • Identify and troubleshoot artistic and technical challenges while meeting performance criteria
  • Mentor artists by offering technical guidance and professional development
  • Evaluate and recommend new tools and techniques to enhance team capabilities

Benefits

  • 100% coverage of medical, dental, and vision premiums for employees and dependents
  • Long-term disability and life insurance included
  • 401k plan with competitive matching
  • Robust mental well-being program offering free therapy and coaching
  • Unlimited PTO and sick leave
  • Company-wide paid breaks throughout the year
  • Paid sabbatical for employees with 7 years of service
Full Job Description
Epic Games is seeking a Principal Environment Artist to help define and elevate the visual quality of Fortnite's worlds. This role combines hands-on environment art production, artistic leadership, and technical problem-solving. You will create benchmark-quality work, establish visual standards, develop scalable workflows, and solve complex artistic and technical challenges. Working closely with Art Direction, Technical Art, Design, Engineering, and Production, you will help align visual quality with gameplay, performance, memory, and production requirements while mentoring artists and advancing environment art practices across the project. In this role, you will - Create benchmark-quality environment assets, materials, modular kits, and complete scenes that establish the visual quality bar for Fortnite - Establish and maintain environment art standards across composition, lighting, color, atmosphere, materials, visual storytelling, gameplay readability, and environmental polish - Develop and improve scalable environment art workflows that increase visual quality, consistency, production efficiency, and content reuse across the project - Partner with Technical Art and Engineering to develop content creation pipelines, and maintain environment art documentation, best practices, workflows, and quality standards - Identify and resolve complex artistic and technical problems while balancing visual quality, runtime performance, memory usage, platform requirements, and production schedules - Mentor artists across different experience levels by providing technical guidance, artistic critique, workflow support, and professional development - Evaluate emerging tools, technologies, and production techniques and recommend improvements that meaningfully advance the environment art team's capabilities What we're looking for - Bachelor's degree or at least 10 years of progressive professional experience creating real-time 3D environments for commercially released video games - Professional experience creating production-ready environment assets, materials, modular kits, and complete real-time scenes - Preferably professional experience using Unreal Engine for environment world-building, PBR materials, lighting, content implementation, and optimization - Professional experience optimizing real-time environment content for performance, memory usage, visual quality, and multiple hardware platforms - Professional experience using a 3D content creation application such as Maya, 3ds Max, or Blender; texture-authoring software such as Substance Painter or Substance Designer; and image-editing software such as Photoshop or equivalent professional tools - Experience developing or improving environment art workflows, pipelines, documentation, or quality standards - Experience reviewing the work of other artists and providing actionable artistic and technical feedback - Experience mentoring or providing professional guidance to environment artists - Portfolio demonstrating professional environment artwork, including examples of 3D modeling, materials, composition, lighting, world-building, and completed real-time environments - Strong written and verbal communication skills and demonstrated experience collaborating with multidisciplinary development teams Preferred Qualifications: - Experience developing large-scale worlds for a AAA, multiplayer, or continuously updated game - Experience with procedural environment creation, advanced material systems, shader workflows, terrain systems, or environment art tools - Experience establishing visual benchmarks and discipline-wide quality standards - Experience collaborating with external development partners or reviewing externally produced environment artwork - Experience delivering environment content across multiple platforms with different performance and memory constraints EPIC JOB + EPIC BENEFITS = EPIC LIFE Our intent is to cover all things that are medically necessary and improve the quality of life. We pay 100% of the premiums for both you and your dependents. Our coverage includes Medical, Dental, a Vision HRA, Long Term Disability, Life Insurance & a 401k with competitive match. We also offer a robust mental well-being program through Modern Health, which provides free therapy and coaching for employees & dependents. Throughout the year we celebrate our employees with events and company-wide paid breaks. We offer unlimited PTO and sick time and recognize individuals for 7 years of employment with a paid sabbatical.

About Epic Games

Epic Games is a video game development company that is best known for creating the popular game Fortnite. The company was founded in 1991 by Tim Sweeney and is headquartered in Cary, North Carolina. Epic Games has developed a number of other successful games, including the Unreal series and Gears of War. The company is also known for its Unreal Engine, a game engine that is used by many other game developers. Epic Games is committed to advancing the state of the art in game development and creating innovative and engaging experiences for players.
Learn more about Epic Games
Size
2,700 employees
Industry
Founded
1991

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