Technical Art Director, Games Innovation

Netflix is one of the world’s leading entertainment services with 283 million paid memberships in over 190 countries enjoying TV series, films and games across a wide variety of genres and languages. Members can play, pause and resume watching as much as they want, anytime, anywhere, and can change their plans at any time.

The Role

ABOUT OUR TEAM: 

The GenAI for Games team at Netflix aspires to transform game development and player experiences using generative AI. We are working to both increase the velocity of development and also unlock truly novel game experiences that will surprise, delight, and inspire players. We are focused on a creator-first vision and approach for AI, one that puts creative talent at the center, with AI being a catalyst and an accelerant. We work with multiple external partners on projects to deliver AI-enabled and AI-powered games to the Netflix service, and we also have an internal team exploring what is possible with this new technology.

ABOUT THE JOB:

As the Technical Art Director for GenAI for Games, you will develop, hold, and share the subject matter expertise, institutional knowledge, best practices, and a practical toolkit for game art directors and artists to create amazing art for games using generative AI. 

You will work on three kinds of projects: 

• Early-stage prototypes, vertical slices, and proofs of concept that are developed by external partners, which present opportunities for collaboration with these partners to create or improve their processes, tools, and pipelines for creating awesome art. The work here has a strong R&D component as we try to do things that have never been done before, and the projects will be on the frontier, ambitious and exploratory in nature, with many unknowns. If successful, these initial proof points will often lead to full game production projects.

• AI-enabled and AI-powered games in full production, which may require consultation with the developers to improve in-game capabilities, workflows, tooling, processes, or pipelines to deliver to quality.

• Prototypes and game projects that are underway in our internal GenAI Labs team which require a mix of guidance/influence and also some hands-on work to prove out in-game capabilities, workflows, tools, and pipelines.

Responsibilities

• You will stay on top of the state of the art for game art tools, workflows, processes, and pipelines across the games industry. You’ll stay current on the developments in generative AI tools more broadly. You will develop theories, strategies, and approaches for leveraging generative AI to power up the art teams at external partner companies as well as internal teams.  You will also work with other technical team members to evaluate emerging companies and their technical art related capabilities, services and products.

• On the practical side, you will work with internal and external partners to help them set up workflows, pipelines, and tools for game projects, using your expertise to amplify and accelerate the creative work done by game art teams. The point isn’t efficiency for its own sake or the replacement of artists in an existing workflow; instead, we want to power up creators, vastly increasing the capabilities of teams and increasing their velocity with new tools and workflows. 

• You will also tackle the challenges around delivering art for new kinds of games that were not possible before the advent of generative AI, establishing the approach to art required for creating novel player experiences.

• You’ll also be a member of the GenAI for Games leadership team, with influence on the projects we decide to pursue as well as the strategy and strategic execution of the new org.

Requirements

• 10+ years as an artist, lead artist, art director, technical artist, and/or technical art director in the game industry

• Knowledge of how to set up art pipelines, workflows, and tools for game production for multiple game genres 

• Demonstrated operating successfully in situations with high ambiguity and with technologies and platforms that may be in development/unfinished 

• A passion for generative AI in games, along with evidence of applied knowledge for how generative AI can be used by artists and art directors to produce great game and assets (either by leveraging generative AI in the creation of art directly, or working with teams to leverage generative AI to create great art)

• Experience working with both internal and external teams

• Good creative instincts and judgment, and evidence of making strong creative calls in fluid, highly ambiguous situations

• Demonstrated ability to contribute to projects in the early stages of the game life cycle, including concepting, art direction, art creation, prototyping, and evaluating the results of prototyping in multiple forms (including gray box, spreadsheet, paper, and other forms of proof of design or experience) 

• Demonstrated competence in working through influence (building relationships based on mutual respect and trust, and then shepherding decisions through stakeholders you don’t control or manage, based on the merits and not on emotion) 

• Excellent written and verbal communication; comfortable interacting and presenting to all levels at the company as well as external partners and stakeholders

• Passion for making video games, especially in a rapid, focused, smaller form vs multi-year investments 

Nice To Have

• Comfortable representing us at conferences or events 

• Experience with building mobile games

Location

• Los Gatos, CA preferred

• Remote: United States or Canada will be considered

  • Traveling once a month to the Los Gatos office will be expected

Our compensation structure consists solely of an annual salary; we do not have bonuses. You choose each year how much of your compensation you want in salary versus stock options. To determine your personal top of market compensation, we rely on market indicators and consider your specific job family, background, skills, and experience to determine your compensation in the market range. The range for this role is $90,000 - $600,000.

Netflix provides comprehensive benefits including Health Plans, Mental Health support, a 401(k) Retirement Plan with employer match, Stock Option Program, Disability Programs, Health Savings and Flexible Spending Accounts, Family-forming benefits, and Life and Serious Injury Benefits. We also offer paid leave of absence programs.  Full-time hourly employees accrue 35 days annually for paid time off to be used for vacation, holidays, and sick paid time off. Full-time salaried employees are immediately entitled to flexible time off. See more detail about our Benefits here.

We are an equal-opportunity employer and celebrate diversity, recognizing that diversity of thought and background builds stronger teams. We approach diversity and inclusion seriously and thoughtfully. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, ancestry, national origin, caste, sex, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity or expression, age, disability, medical condition, pregnancy, genetic makeup, marital status, or military service.

Job is open for no less than 7 days and will be removed when the position is filled.