Lead Lighting Artist in Guildford

Locations: Guildford, Surrey, United Kingdom

Electronic Arts creates next-level entertainment experiences that inspire players and fans around the world. Here, everyone is part of the story. A place where creativity thrives, new perspectives are invited, and ideas matter. A team where everyone makes play happen.

Battlefield is a storied franchise renowned for uncompromising combat gameplay for over two decades. 100 million players and 5 billion hours played later, the Battlefield team is looking to define the future of the first-person shooter. United under the banner of Battlefield Studios, 4 world-class teams across Criterion, DICE, Motive and Ripple Effect have come together to focus on the future of the franchise, a connected Battlefield universe filled with immersive experiences built on our unique DNA.

At Criterion Games we cherish our rich, award-winning history of crafting quality games with joy and passion. As we look to the future, we’re excited to continue innovating and being part of building the future of Battlefield. We believe that healthy and engaged teams are the key to building great games, so we place enormous value on collaboration, fresh ideas, and diverse perspectives. Criterion is a place where you can unleash your creativity and be part of something extraordinary.

What a Lead Lighting Artist does at Criterion:

• We’re looking for a Lighting Artist who can combine a creative eye for composition and tone with a technical knowledge of realtime lighting and capture.
• We need your passion for visuals, atmosphere and style to influence in-game and cinematic lighting, and to set direction for your lighting team to help them achieve beautiful, engaging results that elevate the player experience.
• You will be expected to provide creative and technical solutions together with your team, to add visual quality to the game whilst keeping in mind technical performance limits.
• You will report to the Art Director as part of a team that works collaboratively in an iterative process; including sharing updates, communicating across departments and planning for your team with the help of Development Directors.
• You will also be working alongside multiple other departments and studios to collaborate with other crafts across the project.

A Lead Lighting Artist also needs:

• Experience leading a small team or an appetite to learn this.
• Excellent knowledge of lighting, shading and PBR for realtime applications, including optimisation for performance and quality (e.g. experience using UE4/5, Frostbite, Unity, other game engines).
• Experience shipping AAA titles on current gen consoles.
• Experience with reference capture for Lighting, including HDRI capture and calibration workflows and authoring of skydomes.
• Knowledge of colour grading approaches (e.g. DaVinci Resolve).
• A passion for the technical side of realtime lighting.
• A broad interest in aspects of visual art including but not limited to video games (e.g. photography, filmography, painting, etc.).
• Knowledge of image editing or mastering software a bonus (e.g. Photoshop, Nuke, etc.).

You’ll be expected to:

• Provide consistent and effective direction and guidance to our lighting teams across levels and cinematics, to enable them to deliver high quality lighting on time, to schedule and to specification.
• Help support other leads within the franchise to consider mission critical lighting needs.
• Collaborate with other leads in the franchise to ensure pipelines and workflows are up to production standards.
• Specify and work along with engine, graphics and tools teams to design and implement workflows, techniques and approaches to the lighting craft and set visual goals.
• Provide guidance to other team members to work through technical and creative solutions.
• Communicate progress and raise any issues or proposed solutions with the art directors on the team.
• Proactively use knowledge and experience to identify and solve problems before they affect the development of the project.
• Support the lighting team in providing guidance to the team, developing, mentoring, and enhancing internal skills and capabilities.
• Act as a key point of contact for technical knowledge and expertise within the lighting craft.

About Electronic Arts:

We’re proud to have an extensive portfolio of games and experiences, locations around the world, and opportunities across EA. We value adaptability, resilience, creativity, and curiosity. From leadership that brings out your potential, to creating space for learning and experimenting, we empower you to do great work and pursue opportunities for growth. We adopt a holistic approach to our benefits programs, emphasizing physical, emotional, financial, career, and community wellness to support a balanced life. Our packages are tailored to meet local needs and may include healthcare coverage, mental well-being support, retirement savings, paid time off, family leaves, complimentary games, and more. We nurture environments where our teams can always bring their best to what they do.

Electronic Arts is an equal opportunity employer. All employment decisions are made without regard to race, color, national origin, ancestry, sex, gender, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, age, genetic information, religion, disability, medical condition, pregnancy, marital status, family status, veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by law. We will also consider employment qualified applicants with criminal records in accordance with applicable law. EA also makes workplace accommodations for qualified individuals with disabilities as required by applicable law.