Freelance Technical Artist (Tools & Pipeline)
Bridge art and code as a Freelance Technical Artist, building smart tools, pipelines, shaders, and optimised workflows for an exciting RPG project.
We usually respond within a week
Airship is the leading end-to-end external art and co-development studio for the global gaming industry. We've partnered with some of the biggest names in gaming—EA, 2K, Guerrilla, Sony, 343 Industries, Ubisoft, and Microsoft—to bring their flagship titles to life with stunning visuals and seamless development support.
Our crewmates are driven by a deep passion for games, a commitment to innovation, and the agility to thrive in a fast-paced development environment. We pride ourselves on delivering high-quality work that meets our clients’ needs—on time, every time.
Now, we’re looking for experienced Technical Artists to join our network of talented freelancers. We’re on the hunt for skilled Freelance Technical Artist's to bridge the gap between art and code on an array of upcoming projects. Whether your skill set is focused on developing tools, creating shaders, optimisation or wearing one of the many other TA hats, we want to hear from you!
Key Responsibilities
Pipeline & Tools Development
Design, implement, and maintain content creation, digestion pipelines for assets, terrains and level design usage.
Create in-editor tools that increase efficiency and empower content creators.
Troubleshoot and resolve pipeline issues across multiple disciplines.
Optimization & Performance
Profile and optimize assets, materials, and rendering workflows to meet performance targets.
Collaborate with engineers to ensure cross-platform stability and scalability.
Implement best practices for Nanite, texture streaming, texture formats and mips, memory usage, and draw call reduction.
Nanite triangulation and settings knowledge end best practices.
Collaboration & Support
Act as the primary liaison between Art and Engineering, ensuring creative goals are met within technical constraints.
Provide technical support and guidance to artists and level designers, including onboarding, documentation, and training.
Work with Gameplay on navigation, collisions, line of sight, camera FOV and interactive elements.
Collaborate with Lighting, VFX, and Animation to integrate and troubleshoot complex content.
Innovation & Problem-Solving
Explore and integrate new tools, plugins, and workflows that improve iteration speed.
Focus on procedural geometries, PCG systems, custom HLSL PCG nodes to allow new scalable content creations for variations, level design and efficiency.
Contribute to the development of shaders, and dynamic effects to enhance visual storytelling.
Stay current with industry trends in rendering, real-time workflows, and= game engine capabilities.
Skills & Experience
5+ years of professional experience as a Technical Artist in game development (AAA preferred).
Strong understanding of Unreal Engine (UE4/UE5) workflows, including Blueprints, materials, and shader systems.
Proficiency with industry-standard DCC tools (Maya, 3ds Max, Blender, Substance, Houdini).
Solid knowledge of scripting/programming (C++, Python, C#, HLSL, or similar).
Experience optimizing assets for real-time rendering across multiple platforms.
Strong communication and collaboration skills across creative and technical disciplines.
Experience developing custom tools for art teams.
Nice to Haves
Prior experience shipping AAA titles.
Familiarity with procedural content creation (PCG, Houdini).
Knowledge of rigging and animation pipelines.
Background in VFX or shader programming.
- Department
- Technical Art
- Role
- Technical Artist
- Locations
- Remote
- Remote status
- Fully Remote