Art Lead (Remote

Art Lead

Second Unit Games | Remote - U.S.

Second Unit is looking for an experienced Art Lead for client game projects.

This is a hands-on role. You'll lead artists, but you'll also make art. We're looking for someone who is comfortable setting visual direction, reviewing work, mentoring artists, solving production problems, and jumping in to create or finish assets when that's what the project needs.

If you're a senior artist who enjoys leading people but doesn't want to spend all day in meetings, reviews, and schedules, this may be a good fit.

What You'll Do

Our project teams will typically be small, cross-disciplinary groups of approximately 6–15 developers, depending on the scope of the engagement. You'll lead the artists assigned to the project while working with other discipline leads, the client's art leadership, and the rest of the development team.

You'll lead the artists assigned to the project while continuing to contribute directly. That includes establishing and maintaining the visual bar, reviewing work, estimating and planning art tasks, assigning work, identifying risks early, and solving the day-to-day problems that come with getting game art into a shipping product.

The actual work will vary by project. You might be creating or finishing assets, reviewing character or environment work, helping an artist solve a difficult problem, working with engineering and technical art on performance or implementation issues, and figuring out how to match an established game's visual style and pipeline.

You'll mentor both senior and junior artists and help onboard new team members. We expect our leads to set the standard for the quality of the work and for how the team communicates, collaborates, and responds to feedback.

You'll Help Us Win the Work, Too

Our leads are involved before a project starts, not just after the work has been signed.

You'll participate in client discovery and planning meetings to understand the game, its visual direction, the existing art pipeline, and what the client needs from us. You'll help evaluate scope, identify production risks, estimate the work, and determine what kind of team we need.

You will be an integral part of our initial client conversations. We believe our clients should meet the people who will actually be responsible for the work. You should be comfortable talking with a client's art directors, discipline leads, and studio leadership, asking detailed questions, discussing quality expectations and production challenges, and explaining how our team will work with them.

What We're Looking For

There are two experience requirements for this position that are important to us:

you've helped ship a major game, and you've worked on a game after it shipped.

You must have:

• Personally contributed art to the development and launch of at least one AA or AAA game
• Experience supporting a released game and delivering live or post-launch content
• Strong hands-on game art experience and the ability to create production-quality work
• Experience leading and mentoring other artists, both junior and senior
• Experience reviewing work, giving clear feedback, and maintaining a consistent quality bar across a team
• A solid understanding of game-art pipelines and the technical requirements of getting assets into a game
• The ability to estimate awork, identify production risks, and communicate issues clearly
• Experience working across disciplines with design, engineering, animation, technical art, and production
• The judgment and communication skills to work directly with client art leadership, discipline leads, and studio leadership

You do not need to have "Lead" in your title. If you're a senior artist who has been taking on leadership responsibilities, mentoring other artists, reviewing work, and taking responsibility for the quality of more than your own assets, we're interested in talking to you.

Professional experience with tools such as Maya, Blender, ZBrush, Substance, Photoshop, Unreal Engine, Unity, or proprietary engines and art pipelines is useful. We're less concerned with checking every software box than we are with finding someone who understands how game art gets made, integrated,…