Lead VFX Artist job at Hangar 13, Brighton

The Lead VFX Artist is a high-profile leadership role at Hangar 13’s Brighton studio, driving the artistic and technical direction of real-time visual effects for major AAA gaming titles. Operating under a hybrid studio model (minimum 3 days on-site), you will manage a talented internal team and collaborate with external co-development partners to deliver visually spectacular, performant effects using Unreal Engine 5. Balancing creativity with technical optimization, you will partner across disciplines—including Design, Cinematics, and Engineering—to ensure VFX enhance gameplay, narrative immersion, and run seamlessly across current and next-gen hardware platforms.

Hangar 13 is the elite global development studio behind some of the industry’s most immersive, narrative-driven AAA gaming experiences. Operating as an internal pillar of 2K Games, Hangar 13 functions as a unified global collective with studios across Brighton (UK), Brno, and Prague (CZ). The studio’s philosophy is anchored on bringing complex, mature stories to life through rich world-building, state-of-the-art technological pipelines, and deep player immersion. By joining the Brighton studio, you will work alongside world-class developers in a diverse, welcoming, and creatively challenging environment that pushes the envelope of what interactive entertainment can achieve.

We are seeking a highly sophisticated and technically articulate Lead VFX Artist with profound expertise in Unreal Engine 5. In this pivotal leadership role, you will define both the artistic benchmarks and technical execution standards for real-time visual effects across our upcoming AAA slate. This position sits at the critical nexus of creativity and high-end software engineering. You will be responsible for translating the Art Director’s stylistic vision into high-fidelity, performant, real-time particle dynamics, environmental effects, and combat feedback. Execution requires not just a seasoned aesthetic eye, but a deep mathematical and programmatic mastery of UE5’s foundational systems, including Niagara, Lumen, Nanite, and advanced material/shader authoring.

Furthermore, your responsibilities extend beyond internal studio walls. You will oversee, review, and align the output of external co-development partners and global outsourcing vendors, ensuring their work matches the studio’s technical constraints and creative standards.

The responsibilities of the Lead VFX Artist are distributed across three distinct focus areas:

• Artistic & Technical Execution
• Team Leadership & Vendor Management
• Cross-Discipline Pipeline Collaboration

1. Artistic & Technical Execution

• Push Visual Boundaries: Leverage UE5’s native toolsets (Niagara fluid simulation, advanced vertex shaders, grid-based simulations) to establish a new gold standard for high-fidelity real-time visual effects.
• Optimize Performance: Establish, monitor, and aggressively maintain strict performance and memory budgets for VFX assets across all target SKUs (PC, Xbox Series X/S, PlayStation 5, and next-gen systems). Ensure clean execution within frame-time constraints.
• Lighting Integration: Calibrate real-time effects to interact seamlessly with dynamic global illumination models, balancing emissive materials against Lumen settings.

2. Team Leadership & External Management

• Mentorship & Culture: Provide direct leadership, technical guidance, and constructive, frame-by-frame critique to a local and distributed team of VFX artists, fostering their career growth and artistic evolution.
• Workflow Standardization: Design, document, and deploy efficient VFX creation pipelines that scale predictably across large production environments.
• Co-Development & Outsourcing Oversight: Act as the primary gatekeeper for external co-development pipelines. Review external vendor deliveries, provide clear paint-overs or technical feedback, and ensure external integrations are structurally sound within our primary branch.

3. Cross-Discipline Pipeline Integration

• Gameplay Readability: Partner closely with Game Design teams to verify that combat, environmental, and interactive VFX heighten player feedback, visual clarity, and immersion without causing visual noise or gameplay obstruction.
• Cinematic Integration: Collaborate with the Cinematics, Animation, and Lighting teams via Unreal Sequencer to compose narrative-driven, frame-accurate VFX for scripted cutscenes and emotional story arcs.
• Tool Development: Team up with Technical Art and Engine Engineering groups to build custom tools, HLSL shaders, and pipeline scripts to continually expand the capabilities of UE5’s native VFX toolset.

Essential Skills & Background

• Industry Tenure: Minimum of 7+ years working professionally as a real-time VFX artist within the interactive entertainment industry.
• Shipped Credits: At least two (2) successfully shipped AAA titles on major console or PC platforms in a Senior or Lead capacity.
• Unreal Engine 5 Mastery: Expert-level knowledge of the architecture of UE5, specifically Niagara, custom shader/material creation, math-based vertex deformers, and GPU/CPU profiling tools (e.g., Unreal Insights, RenderDoc, PIX).
• Portfolio Standards: A highly polished, professional demo reel demonstrating exceptional craftsmanship in real-time fluid dynamics, explosions, environmental atmospherics, and combat feedback loops.
• Leadership Capability: Demonstrated history of managing, scheduling, mentoring, and leading teams of artists through a full production cycle.

Highly Desirable Qualifications

• Procedural Pipelines: Practical experience integrating offline or real-time simulation software such as Houdini or EmberGen directly into an Unreal Engine production pipeline.
• Cinematic Sequence Tools: Comprehensive familiarity with sequencing pre-rendered and real-time effects using Unreal Sequencer.
• External Production: Direct experience handling external vendors, framing out outsourcing briefs, and assessing external milestones.
• Networked Game Design: An understanding of the unique architectural hurdles associated with synchronous multiplayer games, including latency compensation, replication budgets, and bandwidth constraints for networked VFX.

Equal Opportunity & Accessibility

Hangar 13 and 2K believe a diverse team produces richer worlds. We remain fiercely committed to providing equal employment opportunities across all areas of our studio. We welcome qualified individuals with disabilities and are dedicated to providing reasonable accommodations throughout the recruitment process, technical test phases, and long-term employment.

Application Process & Submission Protocol

To apply for the Lead VFX Artist position at Hangar 13, please review and follow the standardized application protocol outlined below:

• Step 1: Portfolio Preparation Ensure your submission includes an updated CV alongside a link to your digital portfolio or showreel. Your reel must specifically showcase high-fidelity, real-time visual effects built within Unreal Engine 5.
• Step 2: Shot Breakdown Documentation Include a detailed shot breakdown with your portfolio. This document should explicitly state your exact contribution to each asset, particle system, or cinematic sequence shown.
• Step 3: Formal Submission Submit your application package directly through the official 2K Games Careers Portal or the designated Hangar 13 job board link.

Important Candidate Safeguards

Verification Notice: To protect yourself against ongoing industry recruitment scams, please ensure all communication regarding this role originates from an official corporate email address ending in @hangar13games.com or @2k.com. Hangar 13 will never conduct interviews or extend formal offers via third-party instant messaging apps.