Senior Materials Artist 2

Team Name:

Unannounced Project

Job Title:

Senior Materials Artist II | STARCRAFT | Irvine, CA

Requisition ID:

R028243

Job Description:

Your Mission 

Blizzard Entertainment is assembling a team to build the next chapter of STARCRAFT, returning to a universe forged in interstellar war. This mission offers something new: crafting an original story-driven, open-world shooter while honoring the legacy of one of Blizzard's most beloved games. 

We are here to reignite this universe alongside you. We are here to make STARCRAFT, and it's about damn time. 

We are looking for a Senior Materials Artist II to help craft this new game for Blizzard. As a key member of the development team, you will define and advance the material pipeline, material library, and visual quality standards used across character and environment assets. 

You are comfortable operating in a dynamic environment, navigating fluid deadlines and changing priorities with purpose. 

This role offers a hybrid work week, with a mix of work-from-home and on-site days, based out of our Irvine studio. 

Responsibilities

This role includes, but is not limited to, the following responsibilities: 

• Create and integrate high-quality materials for natural environments, architecture, characters, and props. 

• Define and maintain physically based rendering standards, material authoring guidelines, and quality benchmarks across the game. 

• Develop and evolve scalable material pipelines, libraries, tools, and workflows in partnership with technical artists and engineers. 

• Solve complex artistic and technical material challenges across production, optimization, and final implementation. 

• Partner with art directors, art leads, designers, engineers, and production partners to establish priorities and achieve game goals. 

• Lead material reviews, critiques, and technical evaluations to ensure work meets the established visual direction, performance requirements, and quality bar. 

• Establish best practices for organized, reusable, efficient, and performant texture and material libraries. 

• Mentor artists through documentation, demonstrations, feedback, and hands-on support that strengthens material craft across the team. 

• Evaluate emerging tools and techniques and apply relevant advancements to improve visual quality and development efficiency. 

• Champion collaboration, inclusive development practices, and a player-focused approach to visual quality. 

Minimum Requirements

• 12+ years of applicable professional experience in materials, textures, surfacing, or a related game art discipline. 

• Demonstrated experience shipping multiple AAA games in a senior or principal materials, texture, surfacing, or related art role.

• Expert knowledge of Substance 3D Designer and Substance 3D Painter, with a portfolio demonstrating advanced material authoring and implementation. 

• Expert understanding of physically based rendering, lighting and material interaction, texture creation, optimization, and industry-standard material workflows.

• Experience contributing through multiple phases of AAA game development, including early research and development, pre-production, production, optimization, and final delivery.

• Experience solving complex pipeline and implementation challenges in partnership with engineers and technical artists using a modern AAA game engine such as Unreal Engine.

• Proven ability to act independently as a discipline expert, establish standards, and provide leadership across work groups without relying on formal people-management authority.

• Strong communication, collaboration, mentorship, ownership, and accountability, with the ability to align creative and technical partners around complex goals.

Extra Points 

• Experience building or maintaining shared material libraries across character and environment teams. 

• Experience developing tools, templates, or procedural workflows that improve material quality and production efficiency. 

• Experience with photography, scanning, photogrammetry, or structured reference-gathering workflows. 

• Broad understanding of adjacent game art disciplines, including concept art, lighting, 3D art, shaders, and rendering. 

• Experience supporting art outsourcing partners or external development teams. 

Required Application Materials

• Resume. 

• Portfolio demonstrating relevant material, texture, or surfacing work. 

Your Platform

Best known for iconic video game universes including Warcraft®, Overwatch®, Diablo®, and StarCraft®, Blizzard Entertainment, Inc. (www.blizzard.com), a division of Activision Blizzard, which was acquired by Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT), is a premier developer and publisher of entertainment experiences. Blizzard Entertainment has created some of the industry’s most critically acclaimed and genre-defining games over the last 30 years, with a track record that includes multiple Game of the Year awards. Blizzard Entertainment engages tens of millions of players around the world with titles available on PC via Battle.net®, Xbox, PlayStation, Nintendo Switch, iOS, and Android.

Our World

Activision Blizzard, Inc., is one of the world's largest and most successful interactive entertainment companies and is at the intersection of media, technology and entertainment. We are home to some of the most beloved entertainment franchises including Call of Duty®, World of Warcraft®, Overwatch®, Diablo®, Candy Crush™ and Bubble Witch™. Our combined entertainment network delights hundreds of millions of monthly active users in 196 countries, making us the largest gaming network on the planet!

Our ability to build immersive and innovative worlds is only enhanced by diverse teams working in an inclusive environment.  We aspire to have a culture where everyone can thrive in order to connect and engage the world through epic entertainment. We provide a suite of benefits that promote physical, emotional and financial well-being for ‘Every World’ - we’ve got our employees covered!

The videogame industry and therefore our business is fast-paced and will continue to evolve. As such, the duties and responsibilities of this role may be changed as directed by the Company at any time to promote and support our business and relationships with industry partners.

We love hearing from anyone who is enthusiastic about changing the games industry. Not sure you meet all qualifications? Let us decide! Research shows that women and members of other under-represented groups tend to not apply to jobs when they think they may not meet every qualification, when, in fact, they often do! We are committed to creating a diverse and inclusive environment and strongly encourage you to apply.

We are committed to working with and providing reasonable assistance to individuals with physical and mental disabilities. If you are a disabled individual requiring an accommodation to apply for an open position, please email your request to [email protected]. General employment questions cannot be accepted or processed here. Thank you for your interest.

We are an equal opportunity employer and value diversity at our company. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, age, marital status, veteran status, or disability status, among other characteristics. 

Rewards

We provide a suite of benefits that promote physical, emotional and financial well-being for ‘Every World’ - we’ve got our employees covered!  Subject to eligibility requirements, the Company offers comprehensive benefits including:

• 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.

Eligibility to participate in these benefits may vary for part time and temporary full-time employees and interns with the Company.  You can learn more by visiting https://www.benefitsforeveryworld.com/.

In the U.S., the standard base pay range for this role is $99,200.00 - $183,520.00 Annual. These values reflect the expected base pay range of new hires across all U.S. locations. Ultimately, your specific range and offer will be based on several factors, including relevant experience, performance, and work location. Your Talent Professional can share this role’s range details for your local geography during the hiring process. In addition to a competitive base pay, employees in this role may be eligible for incentive compensation. Incentive compensation is not guaranteed. While we strive to provide competitive offers to successful candidates, new hire compensation is negotiable.