Senior Technical Artist

About the role

You will own the creation of high-quality, performant materials that define the visual identity of Fortnite characters and cosmetics. This role sits at the intersection of art and engineering, where you will translate artistic vision into scalable, real-time material solutions. You will drive innovation in material authoring by leveraging procedural textures and custom material logic to achieve distinctive visual effects. Collaboration is central to this position, as you will partner closely with character artists, tech artists, and engineers to integrate materials seamlessly with geometry, effects, and Blueprints. The role requires a generalist mindset with a specialist focus, ensuring that all created assets meet the highest standards for visual fidelity and performance across platforms. You will also own the improvement of Unreal Engine material pipelines and best practices, contributing directly to the evolution of the toolset used by artists worldwide.

Key facts

What you'll do

Create high-quality, game-ready materials for characters and other cosmetics using Unreal Engine and industry-standard texturing tools.

Build materials that leverage procedural textures and custom material logic to achieve distinctive visual effects that align with Fortnite's art direction.

Generate textures and bake data using tools such as Substance Designer, Substance Painter, and Houdini to ensure assets meet artistic and technical requirements.

Develop reusable material frameworks and workflows that enable tech artists and artists of other disciplines to efficiently create unique assets without sacrificing quality.

Collaborate with character artists, tech artists, and engineers to integrate materials with geometry, effects, and Blueprints in a cohesive pipeline.

Optimize materials and textures to meet strict performance, memory, and scalability targets across a wide range of platforms, ensuring a consistent player experience.

Contribute to improving Unreal Engine material pipelines and best practices by documenting processes and proposing enhancements based on real-world usage.

Identify and resolve technical art issues that arise during development, providing solutions that balance artistic intent with technical constraints.

Support the evaluation and adoption of new tools and techniques that can enhance the efficiency and quality of the material creation process.

Act as a technical art mentor within the Fortnite team, sharing knowledge and fostering a culture of continuous learning and improvement among artists and engineers.

Requirements

A strong reel or portfolio demonstrating realtime game materials, ideally with character or cosmetic-focused examples that highlight your technical proficiency.

Advanced understanding of PBR workflows, real-time rendering constraints, and material authoring best practices as applied to live-service games.

Proven experience creating complex materials using procedural textures and custom material behaviors that enhance visual storytelling.

Hands-on experience with Substance Designer and Substance Painter for texture generation and asset authoring in a production environment.

Familiarity with the Unreal Engine 5 art and material pipeline, including material instances, master materials, and shader customization.

Experience developing content for multiple platforms, considering platform-specific limitations and performance targets.

A solid understanding of modeling and texturing fundamentals within a real-time art pipeline, strong collaboration skills, and a desire to own features and initiatives from inception through ship.

Bonus: Tools, scripting, or pipeline development experience for Unreal Engine, Substance Designer, and/or Substance Painter that automates repetitive tasks and improves artist workflows.

Bonus: Experience in setting up or working with modern character art pipelines, building custom tools, templates, or automation to improve material and texture workflows at scale.

Bonus: Familiarity with Blueprints, Python, or similar scripting languages and experience in secondary areas such as modeling, lighting, or VFX that allows you to contribute beyond your core discipline.

Practical notes

The role is based in Porto Alegre, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil, and is open to candidates who can thrive in this location. Compensation details are not specified in the source material. This position requires a high level of collaboration within an agile, cross-functional team environment, where communication and clarity are essential. You will be expected to work standard hours as defined by local labor regulations and Epic Games' global policies. There are no specific travel requirements mentioned in the source, and no visa information is provided beyond the location being in Brazil. Candidates should be prepared to engage with Epic's interview process and submit a portfolio that demonstrates their technical art capabilities. The focus is on long-term ownership of materials and pipelines, so your ability to manage multiple priorities and deliver consistent results is critical.