Blackbird Interactive is seeking a passionate, analytical, and highly collaborative Technical Artist to join our development team for a 12-month full-time contract at canada jobs. In this role, you will act as a vital bridge between our art and engineering teams, lending your technical expertise to enhance, optimize, and expand upon an existing and beloved game within an established, world-class strategy franchise.
If you are a creative problem solver who loves digging into the nuts and bolts of a game engine, writing shaders, squeezing out extra frames of performance, and empowering traditional artists to bring their best work to life within strict technical constraints, this is the perfect opportunity for you. Blackbird Interactive operates as a remote-first workplace, allowing you the flexibility to work from anywhere within Canada while contributing to ambitious, genre-defining content.
Technical Artist Job Overview
| Category | Specification |
| Company Name | Blackbird Interactive (BBI) |
| Job Title | Technical Artist |
| Department | Art – Technical Art |
| Contract Duration | 12 Months (Temporary Full-Time) |
| Work Model | Remote-First / Flexible Work Arrangements |
| Location / Geographic Restriction | Remote (Candidates must currently reside in Canada) |
| Legal Requirement | Must be legally authorized to work in Canada |
| Annualized Salary Range | $85,000 – $115,000 CAD per year (pro-rated to contract length) |
| Core Technical Focus | C++ Programming, Shader Development & Asset Optimization |
| Project Type | Established Isometric Real-Time Strategy (RTS) Franchise |
| Engine Framework | Proprietary Game Engine |
About Blackbird Interactive
Blackbird Interactive (BBI) is a creative-fueled, future-driven, independent game studio based out of Vancouver, BC. Founded by industry veterans, our studio is dedicated to building a culture where the best talent in the industry can find long-term career fulfillment, grow their abilities, and work on a diverse array of compelling projects. Our portfolio includes legendary, world-class IPs as well as our own original creations spanning multiple genres.
As a remote-first studio, we prioritize clear communication, operational trust, and work-life balance. We believe that small, highly focused teams can achieve extraordinary things when given autonomy and the right collaborative tools. Even as a contract team member, you will be deeply integrated into our studio culture and directly influence the production pipeline of a major gaming title.
Position Summary & Core Objectives
As an embedded Technical Artist for this isometric strategy title, you will join a small, high-performing team focused on live-service support, optimization, and content updates for a highly regarded franchise. Your primary objective will be to identify and execute visual and technical improvements, specifically focusing on dazzling new shader developments and general 3D asset workflows.
Because this project utilizes a proprietary game engine, you must be someone who thrives when working outside the standard workflows of commercial engines like Unreal or Unity. You will step into an established ecosystem, learning its unique architecture, and taking ownership of technical art hurdles. You will spend your days diagnosing bottlenecks, building tools, developing shaders, and ensuring that our modeling, texturing, animation, and FX teams can import their assets seamlessly and efficiently.
Detailed Responsibilities as Technical Artist
1. Engine Integration & Pipeline Management
- Embedded TA Support: Act as the dedicated, go-to technical artist embedded within a proprietary engine ecosystem, adapting quickly to custom tools and pipelines.
- Cross-Discipline Liaison: Serve as the definitive communication bridge between the Creative/Art teams, the Engineering department, and the core limitations of the game engine.
- Asset Management: Oversee, structure, and refine asset management workflows to ensure 3D meshes, textures, animations, and UI elements are organized and integrated cleanly into the game build.
2. Optimization & Performance Engineering
- Framerate Stability: Analyze runtime performance to identify CPU and GPU bottlenecks, implementing smart optimization strategies to improve overall framerate stability across varying PC hardware specs.
- Constraint-Based Problem Solving: Devise high-quality, visually stunning aesthetic solutions that successfully operate within the strict rendering and memory limitations of an existing game engine.
- Shader Development: Author, test, and optimize custom shaders that elevate the game’s visual fidelity while keeping performance costs minimal.
3. Artist Empowerment & Tooling
- Creative Team Support: Provide direct technical assistance, troubleshooting, and workflow solutions to the animation, modeling, texturing, and FX departments.
- Documentation: Technical pipelines are only as good as their clarity; you will author thorough, easy-to-understand documentation and user guides for custom tools and production workflows to ensure team alignment.
- Autonomy & Ownership: Operate with minimal day-to-day supervision, proactively identifying problems within the production pipeline and driving collaborative efforts toward a solution.
Required Skills & Experience
To excel in this role, you must possess a hybrid mindset that balances a keen eye for art with a structured, programmatic approach to software engineering.
- Software Engineering Foundation: Strong programming familiarity and hands-on experience with C++ within a game development context.
- Shader Knowledge: A solid, foundational understanding of shader development, rendering pipelines, and math applied to real-time graphics.
- Asset Creation Familiarity: Comprehensive understanding of traditional game asset building techniques, including 3D topology, UV mapping, texture baking, and budget allocations.
- VFX Pipeline Awareness: A basic understanding of modern visual effects (VFX) production pipelines, simulation tools, and real-time particle integration.
- Problem-Solving Initiative: A demonstrated history of creative problem-solving, with a willingness to devise unorthodox or innovative solutions when standard methodologies fail.
- Collaboration: Excellent interpersonal and communication skills, with the ability to translate complex technical jargon into actionable feedback for traditional artists.
Desired Pluses (Bonus Qualifications)
While the following skills are not strict prerequisites, candidates who possess them will stand out during our evaluation process:
- Profiling Proficiency: Direct experience utilizing GPU and CPU vendor profiling tools (such as RenderDoc, PIX, Intel VTune, NVIDIA Nsight, or AMD Developer Tools) to track down complex performance bottlenecks.
- FX Animation & Particle Systems: An advanced understanding of real-time particle systems, vector fields, and effects animation workflows.
- Proprietary Engine Experience: Previous experience working within, or a strong knowledge of, custom/proprietary game engines rather than commercial off-the-shelf software.
- Source Control Expertise: Highly comfortable navigating version control software, specifically Helix Core (Perforce/P4V) and GitHub pipelines.
- RTS Genre Affinity: A strong interest in or prior professional experience working on games within the Real-Time Strategy (RTS) or isometric tactical genres.
Canada Jobs : Studio Culture & Remote Work Life
At Blackbird Interactive, our remote-first model relies on a culture of transparency, mutual respect, and high accountability. Despite working remotely from coast to coast across Canada, our teams maintain tight-knit bonds through agile stand-ups, collaborative digital whiteboards, and virtual social events.
Throughout your 12-month contract, you will be treated as an equal, vital member of our production unit, receiving the exact same support, clarity, and creative ownership that defines BBI. We look forward to seeing how your unique technical skill set can help us continue to polish and perfect a classic strategy experience!
Application Requirements
To apply for this contract position, please prepare and submit the following materials:
1. An updated CV/Resume that clearly emphasizes your technical art accomplishments, engine experiences, and programming proficiencies (specifically detailing your C++ work).
2. portfolio or technical reel demonstrating your work. This can include breakdown videos of custom shaders you have written, tools you have scripted, optimization case studies (before/after metrics), or examples of art assets you integrated and polished within a game engine.
3. code or script sample (Optional but highly recommended): Short snippets of shader code (HLSL/GLSL) or C++ implementations that showcase your clean formatting and logic structure.
Technical Artist Jobs – Blackbird Interactive, Remote
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