Lead VFX Artist Hangar , Brighton

Corporate Profile & Studio Vision

The Lead VFX Artist is a high-profile leadership role at Hangar 13’s Brighton studio, driving the artistic and technical direction of real-time visual effects for major AAA gaming titles. Operating under a hybrid studio model (minimum 3 days on-site), you will manage a talented internal team and collaborate with external co-development partners to deliver visually spectacular, performant effects using Unreal Engine
5. Balancing creativity with technical optimization, you will partner across disciplines—including Design, Cinematics, and Engineering—to ensure VFX enhance gameplay, narrative immersion, and run seamlessly across current and next-gen hardware platforms.

Brighton Jobs Overview:
Lead VFX Artist

Company
:
Hangar 13 (An internal 2K development studio) •
Job Title
:
Lead VFX Artist •
Department
:
Art •
Job Type
:
Permanent, Full-Time •
Work Model
:
Studio-Based Hybrid (Minimum 3 days per week on-site) •
Location
:
Brighton, East Sussex, England, United Kingdom •
Reports To
:
Art Director •
Target Infrastructure
:
Cross-Platform AAA (PC, Current & Next-Gen Console Hardware) •
Estimated Salary Range
: £75,000 – £95,000 GBP / annum

Primary Toolsets
:
Unreal Engine 5 (Niagara, Lumen, Nanite), Houdini, Ember Gen

Hangar 13 is the elite global development studio behind some of the industry’s most immersive, narrative-driven AAA gaming experiences. Operating as an internal pillar of 2K Games, Hangar 13 functions as a unified global collective with studios across Brighton (UK), Brno, and Prague (CZ).

The studio’s philosophy is anchored on bringing complex, mature stories to life through rich world-building, state-of-the-art technological pipelines, and deep player immersion. By joining the Brighton studio, you will work alongside world-class developers in a diverse, welcoming, and creatively challenging environment that pushes the envelope of what interactive entertainment can achieve.

We are seeking a highly sophisticated and technically articulate Lead VFX Artist with profound expertise in Unreal Engine 5. In this pivotal leadership role, you will define both the artistic benchmarks and technical execution standards for real-time visual effects across our upcoming AAA slate. This position sits at the critical nexus of creativity and high-end software engineering. You will be responsible for translating the Art Director’s stylistic vision into high-fidelity, performant, real-time particle dynamics, environmental effects, and combat feedback.

Execution requires not just a seasoned aesthetic eye, but a deep mathematical and programmatic mastery of UE5’s foundational systems, including Niagara, Lumen, Nanite
, and advanced material/shader authoring. You will oversee, review, and align the output of external co-development partners and global outsourcing vendors, ensuring their work matches the studio’s technical constraints and creative standards.

The responsibilities of the Lead VFX Artist are distributed across three distinct focus areas:
Artistic & Technical Execution
, Team Leadership & Vendor Management
, and Cross-Discipline Pipeline Collaboration
.

[Design & Mechanics] ➔ [Animation/Cinematics] ➔ [Your Team: UE5 Niagara Systems] ➔ [Target Platforms (Console/PC)]

• Push Visual Boundaries: Leverage UE5’s native toolsets (Niagara fluid simulation, advanced vertex shaders, grid-based simulations) to establish a new gold standard for high-fidelity real-time visual effects.
• Optimize Performance: Establish, monitor, and aggressively maintain strict performance and memory budgets for VFX assets across all target SKUs (PC, Xbox Series X/S, Play Station 5, and next-gen systems). Ensure clean execution within frame-time constraints.
• Lighting Integration: Calibrate real-time effects to interact seamlessly with dynamic global illumination models, balancing emissive materials against Lumen settings.

• Mentorship & Culture: Provide direct leadership, technical guidance, and constructive, frame-by-frame critique to a local…