Sr. Technical Artist - Performance and Rendering (Unreal Engine 5)

About the Role

We are looking for a Senior Technical Artist with a strong focus on performance optimization and rendering in Unreal Engine 5.
This role sits at the intersection of art, rendering, and engine-level performance, working closely with engineering, art, and design teams to ensure the game runs efficiently across target platforms without compromising visual quality.

You will be responsible for profiling, diagnosing, and fixing performance issues, optimizing rendering features, and helping define scalable visual quality settings for different hardware tiers.

Responsibilities

• Profile and analyze GPU and CPU performance using industry-standard tools
  (e.g. Unreal Insights, RenderDoc, PIX, Nsight Graphics, Nsight Systems).
• Identify and resolve rendering bottlenecks in UE5 (materials, shaders, lighting, post-processing, Nanite, Lumen, VSM, etc.).
• Debug and modify engine and project-level shaders (HLSL / USH / USF) to fix performance issues and rendering bugs.
• Optimize materials, textures, VFX, UI, and post-process effects for real-time performance.
• Configure and maintain Game Scalability settings and performance tiers
  (Scalability Groups, CVars, platform-specific overrides).
• Work closely with engineers to investigate engine-level issues and propose performance-friendly solutions.
• Define and enforce performance budgets and guidelines for art and content creation.
• Support performance validation across platforms (PC / console) and assist with regression tracking.
• Document best practices and help educate artists and designers on performance-aware workflows.

Required Skills & Experience

• Strong hands-on experience with Unreal Engine 5, especially its rendering pipeline.
• Proven expertise in GPU performance analysis and optimization.
• Deep understanding of:
  • UE5 rendering features (Nanite, Lumen, Virtual Shadow Maps, Post-Processing)
  • Materials, shaders, and draw call optimization
  • CPU ↔ GPU synchronization and frame pacing
• Ability to read, debug, and modify HLSL-based Unreal shaders (engine and project shaders).
• Experience tuning scalability settings and CVars for different performance targets.
• Solid understanding of real-time rendering concepts:
  • Forward vs Deferred rendering
  • Lighting models and shadowing techniques
  • Overdraw, bandwidth, and memory constraints
• Comfortable working in cross-disciplinary teams (engineering, art, design).
  
   

Nice to Have

• Experience with engine source builds of Unreal Engine.
• Console performance optimization experience (PS5 / Xbox Series).
• Knowledge of RDG (Render Dependency Graph) and modern UE5 rendering architecture.
• Experience building performance capture or automated profiling pipelines.
• Background in both technical art and rendering engineering.
• Familiarity with performance validation and asset compliance workflows.