Lead Technical Artist, Optimization; Unreal Engine​/Sports Beverly Hills, CA

Lead Technical Artist, Optimization (Unreal Engine 5 / Sports) job at Refactor Games. Beverly Hills, CA.

Refactor Games is a AAA sports video game studio . We are developing the next generation of professional football (soccer) video games using Unreal Engine 5 .

We’re looking for a Lead Technical Artist to drive performance and optimization across all in-game art. You’ll lead efforts to balance visual fidelity with real-time performance, collaborating with art, rendering, and engineering teams to ensure the game runs smoothly on console and PC.

• Leading optimization strategy for all in-game art assets—characters, environments, VFX, and UI
• Profiling and diagnosing GPU/CPU performance across platforms using UE5 tools and custom profilers
• Establishing and enforcing performance budgets, scalability targets, and best practices for art production
• Implementing LODs, texture streaming, material simplification, and memory management systems
• Partnering with Rendering and Engineering to resolve performance bottlenecks and technical blockers
• Guiding internal and external art teams in efficient asset creation workflows
• Building tools, scripts, and automation to support pipeline efficiency and consistency

• 7+ years of technical art experience, including at least 2+ years in a leadership or mentorship role
• Deep understanding of Unreal Engine 5 profiling and optimization (GPU/CPU, memory, draw calls, shaders)
• Proven experience shipping high-performance console and/or PC titles
• Strong grasp of modern asset pipelines, including Nanite, Lumen, and virtual texture systems
• Excellent communication skills and ability to collaborate across art and engineering disciplines
• Comfortable defining performance goals and providing actionable feedback to artists and tech teams

• Experience leading optimization on large-scale sports, racing, or open-world titles
• Familiarity with console performance certification requirements and QA tools
• Background in shader development or rendering engineering
• Passion for football (soccer) and real-time broadcast presentation
• Experience mentoring cross-disciplinary teams and building performance culture across a studio