Technical Art Director

The Technical Art Director at Smilegate Barcelona is responsible for defining and executing the game's artistic vision in collaboration with other Art Directors and the Technical Art Lead. They act as a bridge between artists and engineers, ensuring effective communication and collaboration between the two disciplines. The Technical Art Director also plays a crucial role in maintaining and improving pipelines and workflows for the art teams, while driving innovation and R&D efforts in art and content creation. This role requires strong technical knowledge, leadership skills, and a passion for managing people and driving best practices.

• Define technical roadmaps and long-term vision for the tech art team
• Prototype innovative approaches to art and content creation and spearhead R&D efforts
• Improve existing content creation tools and pipelines based on both current and long term needs and requirements
• Represent and advocate for the Technical Art discipline at a senior level, ensuring appropriate staffing, prioritizing the right things, and widely understanding risks
• Drive and support the growth of the team through training, goal setting, and professional development
• Closely collaborate with Art, Engineering, and Production teams to understand requirements, define technical roadmaps, and prioritize work
• Set standards for and guard

• Extensive technical knowledge in the field of art and content creation
• Experience in managing people and driving best practices
• Ability to define technical roadmaps and long-term vision for the tech art team
• Proficiency in prototyping innovative approaches to art and content creation
• Strong skills in improving existing content creation tools and pipelines
• Excellent communication and collaboration skills with art, engineering, and production teams
• Ability to prioritize work and understand requirements
• Experience in training, goal setting, and professional development for team growth
• Ability to represent and advocate for the Technical Art discipline at a senior level
• Strong understanding of pipelines and workflows for effective and efficient art team work.

• Appropriate staffing and prioritization of tasks
• Support for team growth through training and professional development
• Collaboration with Art, Engineering, and Production teams
• Setting standards for quality of technical implementation and visual results
• Occasional support in recruitment projects with HR collaboration
• 15+ years of full cycle console or PC game development experience
• Understanding of modern graphics hardware
• Strong knowledge of Unity, Unreal, or similar platforms
• Experience shipping AAA games across multiple platforms
• Strong technical expertise in various categories of technical art
• Excellent communication skills
• Expertise in scripting within DCC apps or game engines
• Experience with modern Maya, Substance Painter and Designer, Houdini
• High proficiency in Python
• Knowledge of modern shading languages such as PSSL, HLSL, or GLS