Senior Technical Artist (Houdini | Procedural Game Art)

Job description

**This position is listed on behalf of a partner company, who manages all applications and next steps. Our partner is looking for a Senior Technical Artist (Houdini | Procedural Game Art) based remotely in Germany.** Combine technical expertise and artistic creativity to build procedural systems that transform game art production. In this role, you will design and develop scalable tools, generators, and workflows using Houdini, enabling artists to create high-quality assets with greater efficiency and flexibility. You will work across procedural modeling, geometry processing, environment creation, and real-time game pipelines, turning complex technical challenges into intuitive, production-ready solutions. By developing reusable Houdini Digital Assets and automating repetitive tasks, you will help teams improve consistency while preserving creative freedom. Working closely with artists and engineers, you will guide procedural development from early experimentation through production integration. This is an opportunity to shape technical workflows, solve challenging problems, and directly influence the quality and efficiency of game development. ### Accountabilities: You will take ownership of procedural art systems and technical art workflows, ensuring that tools are reliable, scalable, and aligned with artistic and production requirements. Your responsibilities will include: - **Procedural Art and Houdini Development:** Design and develop procedural tools, generators, and systems in Houdini to support environment art, asset creation, geometry processing, modular content, and world-building. - **Houdini Digital Assets:** Create reusable Houdini Digital Assets (HDAs) that provide artists with intuitive controls, enable creative iteration, and maintain visual consistency across production. - **Procedural Workflow Design:** Build scalable systems that support controlled variation, efficient asset generation, and high-quality results. Explore new procedural techniques to improve production capabilities. - **Pipeline Integration:** Integrate Houdini-generated content into real-time game development workflows, including Unity3D, Unreal Engine, or comparable production environments. - **Asset Validation and Optimization:** Develop reliable export, validation, and optimization processes to ensure procedural assets meet artistic, technical, and performance requirements. - **Tools and Automation:** Create artist-friendly tools with clear parameters and predictable outputs. Use VEX, Python, and Houdini's procedural toolset to automate workflows and reduce repetitive tasks. - **Prototyping and Production Readiness:** Experiment with creative technical solutions, refine prototypes, and turn successful approaches into stable, reusable production tools. - **Troubleshooting and Continuous Improvement:** Diagnose procedural system issues, geometry problems, and pipeline bottlenecks, identifying opportunities to improve efficiency without compromising visual quality. - **Cross-Functional Collaboration:** Work closely with Environment Artists, Character Artists, Technical Artists, and Engineers to translate creative requirements into practical procedural solutions. - **Technical Guidance and Ownership:** Support artists using procedural tools, share technical knowledge, and manage procedural systems from initial exploration through production implementation. - **Documentation and Best Practices:** Develop reusable templates, maintain clear documentation, and establish practices that encourage consistency and effective knowledge sharing. **Requirements:** You are a skilled technical artist with advanced Houdini expertise, strong artistic judgment, and the ability to develop procedural systems that solve real production challenges. You can work independently, build maintainable tools, and collaborate effectively with multidisciplinary teams to balance creative ambition with technical constraints. The ideal candidate will bring: - At least five years of professional experience in technical art, procedural game art, or a related discipline. - Advanced Houdini skills, supported by a portfolio demonstrating production-ready procedural systems and tools. - Strong knowledge of procedural modeling, geometry processing, attributes, and node-based workflows. - Proficiency in VEX and Python scripting for Houdini. - Experience developing reusable HDAs and artist-facing procedural tools. - A solid understanding of real-time game asset production, including geometry budgets, UVs, materials, and optimization. - Experience integrating procedural assets into Unity3D, Unreal Engine, or comparable real-time engines. - Strong artistic understanding of shape, composition, visual consistency, and production requirements. - The ability to design scalable, maintainable procedural systems and solve complex technical challenges independently. - Excellent communication skills and the ability to collaborate across artistic and engineering disciplines. - Fluency in English. **Bonus Skills:** - Experience integrating Houdini Engine with Unity3D or Unreal Engine. - Knowledge of PDG/TOPs and large-scale procedural asset processing. - Experience with procedural terrain, vegetation, architecture, or environment generation. - Familiarity with voxel geometry, destruction systems, or procedural simulation. - Experience with procedural animation, visual effects, or simulation workflows. - Knowledge of mobile performance optimization and efficient real-time asset generation. - Previous experience developing procedural tools for international co-development teams. **Benefits:** - **Technical ownership:** Take responsibility for procedural tools, systems, and production workflows. - **Creative and technical impact:** Develop innovative solutions that directly improve the quality and efficiency of game art production. - **Collaborative environment:** Work closely with experienced artists, engineers, and technical leaders. - **Remote flexibility:** Work in a remote-friendly, international environment. - **Competitive compensation:** Receive a competitive package, with specific details depending on the agreed arrangement. - **Flexible contract options:** Opportunities for long-term collaboration with flexible contract arrangements. - **Professional growth:** Expand your technical expertise and contribute to challenging game development projects. - **Supportive studio culture:** Participate in annual team retreats and collaborate in an environment that encourages knowledge sharing and creative problem-solving.