What are the responsibilities and job description for the Lead VFX Artist position at Skillsearch?
Are you an experienced Lead VFX Artist looking to shape high-impact visual effects for a large-scale, multiplayer RPG project?
This is an opportunity to join an established, internationally recognised game studio working on an ambitious, story-driven title, where visual effects play a critical role in storytelling, immersion, and moment-to-moment gameplay.
This is a full-time position based in Boston, USA, with hybrid working available. The role is suited to a senior VFX leader who combines hands-on technical excellence with people leadership and a passion for building strong, creative teams.
About the role...
As a Lead VFX Artist, you will be responsible for defining, delivering, and maintaining high-quality real-time visual effects across a major game project. You will lead and mentor a team of VFX artists, collaborate closely with other disciplines, and help drive both artistic vision and technical standards across the project. This role has a strong influence on production planning, pipelines, and long-term VFX strategy.
What you'll be doing:
- Lead, mentor, and support a team of VFX artists, fostering a collaborative and inclusive team culture.
- Design and implement high-quality real-time visual effects that enhance gameplay, cinematics, and narrative moments.
- Drive artistic quality and technical excellence across the VFX pipeline.
- Support team members with goal-setting, feedback, and career development.
- Collaborate with gameplay, environment, animation, and cinematic teams to deliver cohesive visual experiences.
- Research, prototype, and introduce new tools, workflows, and techniques for real-time VFX.
- Ensure VFX content meets performance, memory, and platform constraints.
- Oversee external and outsourced VFX work, including briefing, review, and quality control.
- Partner with production and leadership to align VFX scope, planning, and milestones.
- Help maintain scalable, efficient production pipelines and workflows.
What we're looking for:
- 8 years of professional experience as a VFX Artist in game development.
- Experience shipping at least one AAA title in a lead or senior VFX role
- Proven leadership experience within a creative, cross-disciplinary environment.
- Strong expertise in Unreal Engine 5 and real-time VFX development.
- Solid experience with real-time and baked simulations.
- In-depth knowledge of VFX pipelines and tools, including Houdini.
- Strong understanding of PBR workflows, shaders, lighting, and real-time rendering.
- Advanced skills in performance optimisation and debugging.
- Ability to independently lead complex initiatives and solve technical and artistic challenges.
- Excellent communication and collaboration skills.
- A strong portfolio demonstrating high-quality VFX work for games.
Location and working model...
- Full-time role
- Based in Boston, USA
- Hybrid or in-studio working available
- Remote options within selected US states may be considered
If you’re a Lead VFX Artist who enjoys building teams, pushing real-time visuals forward, and delivering visually striking, performant effects that elevate gameplay and storytelling, we’d love to hear from you.
Years of experience and salary levels are shown purely as a guide. We will only consider applications from candidates that can demonstrate the skills or experience required for the role.
Please be aware that while we would love to respond to every application we receive, due to high numbers we cannot guarantee this. We do however appreciate any time you invest into the application and will make sure to get in touch should anything in future more closely fit your skillset.
Reference: 16410