Contract Senior Lighting Artist (Unreal Engine)

We are looking for an experienced Lighting Artist with a strong foundation in Unreal Engine who can take ownership of lighting across large open world environments. This artist will be responsible for bringing spaces to life through lighting that meets concept art direction, supports gameplay readability, and integrates well with systemic features such as time of day, weather, and other dynamic states. You will work closely with the Lead Lighting Artist and be part of a collaborative lighting team that values nurturing artistic growth, personal development, and shared creative problem solving. We champion artists pursuing excellence and expressing their own artistic voice while contributing to a unified visual direction. This role requires someone who is proactive, communicative, and comfortable working across art, design, tech art, and engineering. Experience in both real time level lighting and cinematic character lighting is important.

WHAT YOU’LL DO

• Own lighting for major areas of the open world environment & cinematics, from initial blockout through final polish.


• Work closely with the Lead Lighting Artist and broader art team to establish and maintain a cohesive lighting vision.


• Create lighting that supports mood, environmental storytelling, and artistic direction.


• Ensure lighting supports gameplay needs such as readability, navigation clarity, and player focus.


• Integrate lighting with systemic runtime features including time of day, weather, and global lighting frameworks.


• Collaborate with environment art, character art, design, tech art, and engineering to develop lighting solutions and workflows.


• Apply real world photographic concepts such as exposure, temperature, contrast, and naturalistic light behavior.


• Use Blueprints to build and refine lighting systems, light functions, controls, and state transitions.


• Contribute to a supportive and knowledge sharing team culture, helping elevate lighting quality across the project.


• Strong understanding of color science, colorgrading & colorspaces.

WHAT YOU’LL NEED TO BE SUCCESSFUL

• 8+ years of professional experience as a Lighting Artist, with at least one shipped AAA title.


• Strong portfolio demonstrating high quality environment and cinematic lighting.


• Experience lighting in Unreal Engine on at least two shipped titles.


• Strong understanding of exposure, color, photographic lighting techniques, and artistic composition.


• Ability to work collaboratively and communicate lighting goals clearly across multiple disciplines


• Experience with Blueprint based lighting functionality and workflow scripting.

PLUSES

• Experience generating sky or atmospheric assets (for example using Houdini).


• Material or mask authoring experience in Substance Designer.


• Familiarity with color management workflows and OCIO pipelines.


• Experience with volumetrics, atmospherics, and light scattering approaches.

This role is remote-friendly, but we are currently prioritizing candidates who are local to the Bellevue, WA area and open to occasional onsite collaboration.

Applications will be accepted until Friday, January 30th by 10am PT. If the deadline is extended, the posting will be updated accordingly. If the position is filled before this date, the posting will be removed.