Pocket Gems seeks to build the greatest mobile games and most compelling interactive entertainment in the world. That’s the mission our founders began with, in an apartment above a pizza shop back in 2009, and it continues to inspire us today. Since then, we’ve grown to over 200 people in San Francisco, and with $155 million in backing from Sequoia Capital and Tencent, we’re constantly breaking new ground in mobile entertainment.
Our products have been downloaded over 500 million times by players around the world and have generated over $1 billion in bookings. In recent years, we’ve launched Episode, a mobile storytelling network and platform, and War Dragons, a visually stunning 3D real-time strategy game.
As our community of players continues to grow, we’re committed to building diverse and inclusive environments across our teams, and in our games.
As a Senior Environment Artist on the Empire Team you will create work with the Seniors of the team, building environment art and other art assets to support new prototype games. You will work in a small, fast-paced iterative team, building features, blocking out art and responding to player results while also providing game design input to help shape the product. You will be a pillar of the team and contribute significantly to early success of new games. We want to go to the next level in mobile games!
What We’ve Accomplished:
- Assembled an incredibly talented art team, with industry veterans and talent that work extremely well together
- Shipped a very ambitious game, with huge scope, “next gen” graphics on new tech, called Wild Beyond
- Created a robust, systematic process for prototyping games
- Created a development environment that fosters teamwork, learning from failures and supports success through iterative development
What You’ll Do:
- Support the Seniors of the team to develop art content for prototypes
- Work collaboratively with the leadership and game designers so execute features
- Work in a generalist capacity to create artwork in all aspects of 3D at a minimal level of quality for prototyping
- Respond to player feedback by contributing game design opinions and ideas
- Act as a Game Developer with informed, thoughtful opinions, not just as an artist
- Communicate effectively with all departments, from engineering, design to art
- Be able to switch from “prototype” artist, to “production” artist, building final production art
- Able to synthesize concept art and block out models into final game environments
- Able to create guidelines of final artwork, and mentor others towards repeating your success
What You Bring to the Team:
- Proven experience: at least 5+ years experience working in gaming as Environment Artist, having shipped several games working from beginning to end of production.
- Positive work ethic, self-motivation, and eager for constructive feedback.
- Expert level knowledge of Maya and Photoshop (or equivalents)
- Able to follow and adapt to stylistic guidelines set by the Lead/Art Director
- Experience with a lighting model and understands the principles of basic lighting
- Passion for craft: solid understanding of technical limitations of game engines and can execute high-quality art within those limitations.
- Strong organizational and file management skills
- Excellent communication and problem solving skills
Extra Gems For:
- Having shipped AAA PC or Console titles as an Environment Artist
- Exceptional understanding of next generation asset creation pipelines and tools, experience with Substance Painter and Zbrush
- Has lit environments and worked with newer lighting models.
- Has an interest and plays 4x games
- Has animated environment assets
- Experience designing assets for modular systems
- Strong foundation in the traditional arts: able to concept ideas before creation process
- An avid and passionate gamer across multiple platforms
Read more about what we’ve been up to!
- Pocket Gems Blog
At Pocket Gems, we're building teams that value originality, inclusivity, and accountability. While we believe we offer competitive perks, such as annual bonuses, unlimited PTO, 401k matching, and a generous benefits package, we hope to engage with talent based on our core values.
Pocket Gems is an equal opportunity employer. We do not discriminate based on race, color, ethnicity, ancestry, national origin, religion, sex, gender, gender identity, gender expression, sexual orientation, age, disability, veteran status, genetic information, marital status or any legally protected status.
Pursuant to the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance, we will consider for employment qualified applicants with arrest and conviction records.
