Principal Graphics Engineer | Unannounced Project - Irvine, CA
About The Position
At Blizzard, we craft genre-defining games and legendary worlds for all to share. Through unparalleled creativity and storytelling, we create immersive universes and iconic characters that are beloved across platforms, borders, backgrounds, and generations only made possible by building a work environment that cultivates the artistry of game development and unleashes the aspirations of our people. We are looking for a Principal Software Engineer to help craft a new, unannounced game at Blizzard. Our team values creativity, collaboration, and a dedication to quality, and we are searching for contributors aligned to our core Blizzard values to join our team of dedicated game makers. As a key member of the development team, you will be responsible for shaping the rendering architecture and visual pipelines that power high‑quality, scalable player experiences across multiple platforms. You are comfortable operating in a dynamic environment, navigating fluid priorities while maintaining strong technical vision and ownership. This role is anticipated to be a hybrid work position, with some work on-site and some work from home. The potential home studio for this role is Irvine, CA.
Requirements
- Significant experience in real-time graphics or rendering engineering on shipped Unity games released across multiple platforms.
- Deep experience building and optimizing graphics systems in Unity, including familiarity with Universal Render Pipeline or Scriptable Render Pipelines.
- Advanced experience developing and optimizing shaders using HLSL and ShaderLab, including GPU techniques such as compute shaders.
- Strong knowledge of modern real-time rendering techniques, including physically based rendering, lighting and shadowing, post-processing, and material systems.
- Expertise in profiling and optimizing CPU, GPU, memory usage, and asset loading during both gameplay and runtime.
- Experience working within graphics performance budgets, texture streaming strategies, and asset memory management across platforms.
- Proven ability to work collaboratively within teams and foster productive partnerships across all disciplines.
- Demonstrated ability to inspire colleagues through an enthusiastic approach to game development and a commitment to continuous improvement of core skills.
- Ability to take initiative and manage responsibilities independently, demonstrating strong ownership and accountability.
- Experienced and knowledgeable player of a wide range of games, using this perspective to inform creative and technical decisions.
Nice To Haves
- Experience developing shared libraries, rendering tools, or art workflow improvements in Unity.
- Experience working with audio middleware such as Wwise, FMOD, or Fabric within Unity-based games.
- Familiarity with Blizzard games.
Responsibilities
- Designs and implements rendering systems, shader frameworks, and graphics pipelines in Unity to support high‑quality visuals across multiple platforms.
- Partners closely with artists and technical artists to develop scalable art workflows, asset pipelines, and tools that enable efficient content creation.
- Profiles and optimizes CPU, GPU, memory, and asset performance to ensure players can enjoy the game with smooth performance and minimal time to fun.
- Develops and improves asset delivery and patching workflows for the game client, including asset bundling strategies that support efficient and seamless updates.
- Mentors and collaborates with other engineers, helping guide graphics and runtime architecture while setting a strong technical vision for visual systems and pipelines.
Benefits
- Medical, dental, vision, health savings account or health reimbursement account, healthcare spending accounts, dependent care spending accounts, life and AD&D insurance, disability insurance
- 401(k) with Company match, tuition reimbursement, charitable donation matching
- Paid holidays and vacation, paid sick time, floating holidays, compassion and bereavement leaves, parental leave
- Mental health & wellbeing programs, fitness programs, free and discounted games, and a variety of other voluntary benefit programs like supplemental life & disability, legal service, ID protection, rental insurance, and others
- If the Company requires that you move geographic locations for the job, then you may also be eligible for relocation assistance.
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What This Job Offers
Job Type
Full-time
Career Level
Principal
Education Level
No Education Listed
Number of Employees
5,001-10,000 employees
