Principal Materials Artist - Apex Legends

About the Role and Company

Electronic Arts (EA) is a global leader in interactive entertainment, offering engaging experiences to players worldwide. Operating through its award-winning studio Respawn Entertainment, known for titles like Apex Legends and Star Wars Jedi series, EA fosters a creative culture encouraging innovation and collaboration across disciplines.

We are inviting a Principal Materials Artist to join the Apex Legends team to lead development and management of a core material library and innovate surfacing workflows. In this role, you will collaborate closely with multidisciplinary teams to create standardized, high-quality asset pipelines that enhance material presentation.

Primary Responsibilities

• Collaborate with experts in rendering, technical art, and craft to develop new surfacing pipelines and strategies.
• Create, maintain, and curate a comprehensive shared material library of outstanding quality.
• Design complex layered material systems considering surface interactions.
• Contribute expertise on Substance Painter/Designer, Houdini Copernicus, and other digital content creation tools to improve pipelines and tools.
• Advocate for technologies that align with performance requirements and technical limitations.
• Participate in testing and validating advanced rendering and lighting features.
• Foster cross-disciplinary partnerships to implement effective solutions.

Required Qualifications

• At least 12 years of professional experience in game development.
• A portfolio showcasing diverse, high-quality materials with mastery of physically based rendering (PBR).
• Expertise in Substance Painter and Substance Designer.
• Proven experience producing shared material libraries at AAA quality delivered to market.
• Familiarity with live service games, seasonal content, cosmetics, or character customization is advantageous.
• Experience collaborating with technical teams to establish new pipelines.
• Capability to create materials or shader prototypes as visual standards is a plus.
• Comfort operating with proprietary technologies deployed on multiple platforms emphasizing performance.
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills, with ability to create documentation, training materials, and mentor junior artists.

Compensation and Benefits

For locations such as British Columbia, compensation ranges from $133,500 to $186,400 CAD, and in California, from $153,700 to $233,600 USD, subject to factors like qualifications and experience. Benefits include paid time off, sick leave, holidays, parental leave, healthcare coverages, life and disability insurance, retirement plans, and potential bonuses.

Equity and Inclusion

Electronic Arts is committed to equal opportunity employment and creating workplace accommodations for qualified individuals with disabilities. Employment decisions are made without discrimination based on legally protected characteristics.