Technical Artist - Optimizing AA UE5 Game for Cloud Streaming

This position is listed on behalf of a partner company, who manages all applications and next steps. Our partner is looking for a Technical Artist - Optimizing AA UE5 Game for Cloud Streaming based in Switzerland. The Technical Artist will help optimize a high-quality, content-rich Unreal Engine 5 game for deployment on a cloud streaming platform. You will balance GPU performance, memory usage, platform constraints, and visual quality while preserving a distinctive stylized, non-photorealistic art direction. The role combines hands-on profiling and content optimization with the development of tools and validation processes that support efficient production. You will work across materials, textures, LODs, lighting, VFX, shaders, and advanced UE5 rendering technologies such as Lumen, Nanite, and Virtual Shadow Maps. Visual quality and readability will remain a priority, with optimization decisions driven by measured performance gains rather than blanket reductions. You will collaborate closely with technical artists, Unreal engineers, UX designers, QA, and production teams in a highly specialized environment. This is a remote, project-based contract of approximately four months, offering the opportunity to solve challenging real-time rendering and cloud-streaming optimization problems. Accountabilities - Profile GPU performance and memory usage using Unreal Insights, RenderDoc, and other relevant profiling tools. - Analyze profiling data to prioritize optimization work and verify that each change produces measurable performance improvements without unacceptable visual degradation. - Identify bottlenecks that fall outside the art and content scope and provide engineering teams with relevant profiling data for further investigation. - Optimize shaders, materials, overdraw, draw calls, texture memory, and other content-related sources of GPU and memory cost. - Tune Lumen, Nanite, and Virtual Shadow Maps to achieve appropriate performance within target platform budgets. - Create and refine LODs and simplify materials where global engine or scalability settings are insufficient.

- Preserve the intended visual identity throughout the optimization process, including outlines, shading, post-processing effects, lighting, atmosphere, and fog. - Evaluate how line work, fine details, and other visual elements respond to cloud streaming and video encoding, and adjust content where necessary. - Define appropriate content budgets and collaborate with engineering teams on scalability settings and performance targets. - Build Unreal Engine editor tools, validation scripts, and checks that help identify content exceeding defined performance or memory budgets. - Proactively identify visual and performance risks and communicate potential trade-offs to internal and external stakeholders. - Collaborate with Unreal engineers, technical artists, UX designers, QA, and production to coordinate optimization priorities and deliverables. - Keep optimization decisions focused on measured trade-offs, maintaining visual quality and readability rather than applying indiscriminate reductions. Requirements - At least 4 years of professional experience as a Technical Artist in game development, including work on large or complex projects. - At least 3 years of hands-on production experience with Unreal Engine 4 or 5. - Proven experience profiling and optimizing game content using GPU and memory profiling tools in production environments. - Strong knowledge of materials, textures, LODs, lighting, VFX, animation, and real-time rendering workflows. - Hands-on production experience with Lumen, Nanite, and Virtual Shadow Maps. - Strong understanding of shader and material optimization, overdraw reduction, draw-call management, and texture memory optimization. - Experience developing Unreal Engine editor tools, validation scripts, or similar production-support tooling.