Lead Lighting Artist

Who We Are

Home to the award winning Mafia franchise our team are united by passion for rich narrative storytelling cinematic presentation and AAA craft. Were looking for creative minds and driven professionals who share our love of story style and adventure. If youre ready to help shape the next generation of narrative driven games wed love to hear from you.

Job Summary

• We are looking for a Lead Lighting Artist to help shape and deliver world-class real-time lighting across gameplay cinematics and key marketing assets.
• This role sits at the intersection of creativity and technical expertise using Unreal Engine 5 to create lighting that enhances atmosphere storytelling and player experience while meeting performance goals.
• Reporting to the Art Director the Lead Lighting Artist will work closely with Engineering and the other Art Disciplines playing a key role in defining lighting solutions that are both visually ambitious and technically robust.

Duties and Responsibilities

• Drive Lighting Quality & Vision

  • Help define and execute the lighting vision in alignment with the games art direction.
  • Set and maintain lighting standards and best practices to ensure a consistent high-quality visual bar.
  • Create lighting that supports mood composition readability and emotional impact across a wide range of content.
  
  

  Gameplay Cinematic & Marketing Lighting

  
  
  • Lead lighting for real-time gameplay and in-engine cinematics ensuring a cohesive visual experience.
  • Collaborate with a cross-disciplinary team on the creation of high-end marketing and promotional assets contributing ideas and helping deliver polished visually striking results.
  • Adapt lighting solutions to work effectively across gameplay and cinematics.
  
  

  Unreal Engine 5 Leadership

  
  
  • Act as a go-to expert for UE5 lighting with hands-on experience using systems such as Lumen Virtual Shadow Maps exposure and post-processing.
  • Use UE5s lighting capabilities to push visual quality while maintaining performance and stability.
  • Partner with Technical Art and Engineering to explore new features and improve lighting workflows.
  
  

  Technical Collaboration & Performance

  
  
  • Build strong working relationships with Engineering teams to develop and refine lighting solutions.
  • Take ownership of lighting performance identifying potential issues early and helping guide effective solutions.
  • Contribute to the ongoing improvement of lighting pipelines tools and debugging processes.
  
  

  Lead Support & Mentor

  • Provide clear artistic and technical guidance to lighting artists through reviews feedback and hands-on support.
  • Help plan and scope lighting work identify dependencies and support the team in hitting quality and production goals.
  • Be an active advocate for lighting quality and consistency throughout development.

Essential Skills Attributes and Experience

• Lighting & Unreal Engine Expertise

  • A strong portfolio showcasing high-quality real-time lighting in Unreal Engine including gameplay cinematics and marketing assets.
  • Experience in a Lead Lighting Artist role on shipped titles.
  • Deep hands-on experience lighting complex scenes using UE5.
    
    

  Creative & Technical Balance

  • Excellent understanding of lighting fundamentals such as color contrast exposure composition and mood.
  • Strong technical awareness of real-time rendering constraints profiling and optimization.
  • Strong understanding of grading and colour pipelines from content creation through in-engine rendering and final output.
    
    

  UE5 Savvy

  • Deep practical knowledge of Unreal Engine 5 lighting systems and workflows.
    Comfortable working closely with engineers to balance artistic goals with technical realities.
    
    

  HDR Sky Capture & Real-World Reference

  • Previous experience capturing processing and implementing HDR skies / sky domes.
  • A solid understanding of physically based lighting and real-world lighting reference.
    
    

  Collaboration & Communication

  • Clear communicator who can explain lighting intent to both artistic and technical audiences.
  • Enjoys collaborating sharing ideas and helping elevate the work of the team.

Highly Desirable

• Experience contributing to high-quality in-engine marketing or promotional assets.
• Familiarity with custom or advanced rendering pipelines in Unreal Engine.
• A strong eye for cinematic lighting composition and visual storytelling.
• Photography and studio lighting skills

Hangar 13 prides itself on the diversity of its team members partners and communities. For this reason we remain committed to providing equal employment opportunity in all aspects of the employment relationship from recruitment and hiring through compensation benefits discipline and termination.

As an equal opportunity employer we are also committed to ensuring that qualified individuals with disabilities are provided reasonable accommodation(s) to participate in the job application and/or interview process to perform their essential job functions and to receive other benefits and privileges of employment. Please contact us if you need to request reasonable accommodation.

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If you believe you have been a victim of such a scam you may fill out a complaint form at and detailing as much as possible. We are taking these matters very seriously and apologize for any inconvenience.

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