On being a Technical Director (Art) at Ubisoft Toronto
As a Technical Director (Art) at Ubisoft Toronto, you have the highest level of understanding of what our tech can do, can’t do, might do, and the visibility on the project as a whole. You’re responsible for providing expert insight, tools, and support to steer a game – and its creators – toward success.
Working with other directors early on, you discuss intentions before making any commitments. You take into account not only measurable factors such as rendering, performance, and memory but also intangible ones like timing and momentum. Seeing the facts realistically, you establish an actionable plan to bridge the gap between coming up with ideas and putting them into practice.
Though every day of development brings its own mix of both expected and unforeseen challenges, you never lose sight of the big picture. As a strategic thinker and tactical planner, you balance short-term priorities with long-term goals, while consistently considering the future impacts of your choices.
The daily life of a Technical Director (Art) at Ubisoft Toronto:
- Collaborate with other core team members to develop the overall vision and determine technical feasibility;
- Identify and analyze risks (engine, data, features, etc.);
- Assess existing tools and occasionally design custom ones to support art pipelines and workflows, and sustain the vision;
- Set up and maintain frameworks to allow artists the most creative freedom, while hitting quality and performance requirements;
- Meet with technical artists and assistant technical art directors to share information and updates, enforce standards, set benchmarks, give feedback, etc.;
- Resolve specific, complex, escalated issues and approve technical specifications;
- Anticipate technological advancements and stay up to date on market trends to define our best practices and share them with our studios and the industry;
- Represent the entire art team in technical discussions and requirements gathering;
- Set up frameworks for collaboration across multiple studios with different levels of integration;
- Prepare post-mortems and recommend ways to evolve how we create and integrate graphic data;
- Participate in recruitment to build the technical art team and foster their growth.
Qualifications
What it takes to make it:
- A college diploma in 3D Modelling, Programming/Engineering, Art or equivalent;
- 5+ years of art, technical art, or programming experience, or other related experience
- 3+ years of leadership experience;
- In-depth knowledge of game engines (e.g. Unity or Unreal) & their limitations, 2D art tools (e.g. Photoshop), 3D software (3DS Max, Maya, and Substance Painter), and an understanding of scripting languages (e.g. C#, Python, JavaScript, MaxScript);
- Familiarity with bug tracking software (e.g. Jira) and version management systems (e.g. Perforce);
- A highly innovative, collaborative, empathetic, and solution-oriented spirit;
- Excellent communication, interpersonal, mentorship, and presentation skills;
- Critical thinking, time management, and organizational capabilities;
- Attention to detail, curiosity, resourcefulness, and plenty of flexibility.
We know that skills and competencies show up in different forms and can be based on different experiences, that's why we strongly encourage you to apply even though you may not have all the requirements listed above.
Follow this link to apply: https://smrtr.io/cqKym
