Our ideal candidate is a Technical Artist who not only has the technical know-how but more importantly the soft skills and customer centric mindset that will allow the candidate to successfully support our games and the team behind it.

The role description for a Technical Artist can be endless or very brief: a Technical Artist makes things that couldn’t happen, happen. They do so by ways of an inquisitive and open mind.

What are we looking for? You are an avid gamer (mobile and not), you have previous experience as a Technical Artist taking on a wide range of tasks on a mobile Unity project. You have experience with performance and optimisation requirements on mobile platforms and you are familiar with mobile games art trends. Participation in Game Jams and personal projects will get you extra credit.

We are looking for people with a growth mindset: it’s not about being the best. It’s about being better than your previous self. If you love trying and learning new things, if you work on personal projects and what others consider failure you call it a learning experience, then you’ll fit just right.

Rovio Toronto’s Art Department is staffed by a small team of artists, people in our team will take on multiple roles and are fluent in more than one discipline (it’s the closest thing to making a game all by yourself), what it means is that all artists specialise in one discipline but they are also fluent in a second / third discipline.

At Rovio Toronto we all come from a wide range of backgrounds and we believe that our different experiences and perspectives are what make us stronger, and as team members we acknowledge that we all have different personal interests and priorities but we also commit to putting them aside and to focus on our common goal: to craft joy for our players.

Rovio Toronto is part of the Rovio family of studios (Finland, Sweden, Denmark, Montreal and Toronto) and wants to bring its Nordic Values and exceptional work environment and benefits to North America, we work under a hybrid model, we are mostly remote but we believe there is value in collaborating face to face when possible and allowed by the local health guidelines.

Responsibilities

Bridge the gap between Art and Tech and make things that could not happen, happen.
Work in a wide range of styles and create mobile friendly VFX and shaders.
Support and optimise the artists’ work by creating scripts/tools and creating and maintaining documentation and tutorials.
Help design and maintain the content pipeline by collaborating with the other disciplines.
Create and integrate art and game assets into the engine.
Profile and optimise art assets in Unity.
Take part in the development of new graphic techniques (rendering / post-FX, shaders, VFX) and other R&D initiatives.

Who we think will do great in this role has

You have a growth mindset. You are always looking to learn new skills. What you’re good at: you want to get better. What you don’t know: you want to learn.
Customer centric attitude, as a Technical Artist your job is to support the game and the team behind the game.
Experience in Unity (URP, shader/VFX graph/Amplify shader, particles, assets integration/optimization/profiling).
Experience in developing tools and scripts (C#, Python, GLSL/HLSL or other programming/scripting languages).
Experience in NPR rendering pipelines, creating custom shaders and VFX.
Working knowledge of 3D applications and workflows: Zbrush, Blender, 3DsMax or Maya.
Knowledge of mobile platforms limitations and challenges.
Excellent communication and customer service skills.
Ability to work independently and as a part of a team.
Be a champion and ambassador for quality and excellence within the Art Department.
Empathy and ability to understand the point of view of others, especially the players.
Business level spoken and written English proficiency.

Recruitment process

First meeting: You will meet the hiring manager. Before diving deeper into your skills, we want to know who you are and what motivates you. This is also an opportunity for you to learn more about Rovio and the specifics of the role.

Tech Art test: We do a simple test which is not very time consuming but emulates a task that you would be likely to be working on if selected for this role.

Second meeting: You will meet some Craft Leads and discuss the test and topics related to it (as a group meeting or as a series of 1 on 1s).

Final round: You will be invited to meet the game team lead and team member(s).

We welcome applicants to use the name they want to be addressed by in the application form, regardless of whether it is their legal name.