Hidden Path is in development on a AAA, third-person, open-world fantasy RPG that will be taking place inside the Dungeons & Dragons franchise.
Open Positions:
Hidden Path’s Benefits:
-
- Robust health insurance options
- 401(k) with company contribution
- Paid parental leave
- Employee profit sharing
- Life insurance
- Vacation time plus paid holidays
- Unlimited sick leave
- Paid time off for professional conferences
- Volunteer PTO day
- Non-profit company matching
- No crunch policy
To apply, please email us at jobs@hiddenpath.com.
We thank you for your interest in employment with Hidden Path Entertainment.
Lead Graphics Programmer
You will be responsible for leading a small team of graphics engineers for a AAA, third-person, open-world fantasy RPG that will take place inside the Dungeons & Dragons franchise using Unreal Engine 4. The graphics team is responsible for the technologies behind visual effects, lighting, and simulations, and for maintaining performance. You will be working closely with directors and leads to achieve the project’s graphics goals. As a lead, you will be responsible for day to day task management, task and feature estimations, contributing your advice on the architecture for new features, and code reviews for your team. You will also be responsible for leading the effort to profile and optimize the game to reach our target frame rates on multiple platforms and resolutions with assistance from your team. You will also document the features you create so that others can use them and understand them. This is both a lead and hands on position. This role reports to the studio’s Director of Technology.
Hidden Path is an inclusive, collaborative environment. You will be working with artists, designers, engineers, and other disciplines from all walks of life who have a variety of different perspectives. Being able to navigate and thrive in this kind of environment will be key to your success. This is a full-time remote position. Post COVID this position will convert to on-site in Bellevue, WA.
You should:
- Have 8+ years in the game industry
- Have shipped at least one game title
- Have experience leading a small team of engineers, including task management, prioritization of tasks and goals, architecture and API advice, and code reviews
- Have excellent knowledge on ways to profile and optimize code and content for the CPU and GPU in a multithreaded game engine
- Have strong knowledge of 3D mathematics and rendering pipelines
- Have excellent knowledge of C++
- Have excellent coding design skills
- Be self-motivated and self-directed
- Have excellent verbal and written communication skills
- Have strongly cultivated soft skills
Nice to have:
- B.S.in computer science or computer engineering
- Experience with Unreal Engine 4
- Solid debugging skills
- Experience working with a console
- An artistic eye for what makes good visuals
Senior Accountant (Part Time)
Hidden Path Entertainment seeks a Senior Accountant (part-time) to join our team. This position will report to the COO/CFO. The Senior Accountant will be involved with the entire financial function, including but not limited to review of transactions input by staff, preparation of journal entries, balance sheet reconciliations, payroll, cash management, financial controls, the financial closing and financial reporting processes as well as preparation for outside audit and tax work.
Hidden Path is an inclusive, collaborative environment. You will be working with video game professionals from all walks of life who have a variety of different perspectives. Being able to navigate and thrive in this kind of environment will be key to your success. This part-time position is a new role in the organization and is anticipated to require approximately 100 hours per month. The Senior Accountant will work remotely initially, supported by Hidden Path. Post-COVID, this position will be hybrid on-site in Bellevue WA/work from home.
In this role, you will have these responsibilities:
- Preparation and review of financial statements, including monthly, quarterly and annual statements
- Process payroll and coordinate with HR director for new hire/termination processing
- Responsible for preparation and review of journal entries, account reconciliations and other duties as part of the monthly financial close
- Prepare/review account analysis as required including summarize and present findings
- Create and update internal controls related to the financial processes and continually evaluate and improve controls
- Provide support for independent audit and tax preparation, prepare and file monthly/quarterly state & local tax returns
- Assist in budget preparation
- Assist with quarterly board of directors reports
To be considered, you should have:
- 5+ years of progressive experience in financial and accounting roles, including closing process and financial statement preparation
- Understanding and proficiency with payroll processing
- Understanding and knowledge of internal control systems
- Ability to meet deadlines and perform multiple functions
- Excellent proficiency with Microsoft Office, particularly Excel, and financial software
- Undergraduate degree in accounting or finance
Nice to have:
- Experience with Quickbooks
- CPA or equivalent financial designation
- Knowledge of/interest in video game industry
Senior UI Programmer
Hidden Path Entertainment is seeking a Senior UI Programmer for a AAA, third-person, open-world fantasy RPG that will take place in the Dungeons & Dragons franchise.
As a Senior UI Programmer, you will be responsible for developing the framework for this RPG’s frontend and in-game screens. You will work closely with UI artists and designers in creating the game’s UI, and you will work with other engineers to help them develop UI features. The ideal candidate will be passionate about good UI/UX in games, and will have experience creating or working with UI frameworks.
This role reports to the studio’s Director of Technology.
Responsibilities:
- Own this RPG’s UI framework
- Work closely with UI artists and designers to realize the game’s UI
- Work with other engineers to help them implement UI features
- Document UI systems so that others can use them and understand them
- Write maintainable and performant code
- Assist with bug fixing and polish
Requirements:
- Passion for good UI/UX
- 6+ years in the game industry
- Contributed significantly to the UI/UX for a game title that shipped
- Excellent knowledge of C++
- Excellent coding design skills
- Solid debugging skills
- Self-motivated and self-directed
- Excellent verbal and written communication skills
Nice to have:
- B.S. in computer science or computer engineering
- Experience with Unreal Engine 4, UMG, and Blueprints
- Experience working with PC and a console
Art Outsourcing Producer / 3D Art Integrator
Hidden Path Entertainment is seeking an experienced Art Outsource Producer / 3D Art Integrator who is comfortable working with Unreal Engine for a AAA, third- person, open-world fantasy RPG that will take place inside the Dungeons & Dragons franchise.
The Art Outsourcing Producer / 3D Environment Art Integrator is a role responsible for managing outsourcing statements of work, asset tracking, partner progress and tracking, and additionally bringing appropriate art outsourcing deliverables into the game engine environment.
This position integrates with creative product owners, business team members, and external partners developing art assets for the company. Responsibilities include scheduling, tracking development, and ensuring deliverables are met in a timely manner and at the specified quality. Additionally you would verify appropriate environmental 3d assets in engine such that they can be then utilized by the art team.
Responsibilities:
- Collaborates with partners and development team(s) to define and meet project deadlines.
- Works closely with internal and external teams to maintain quality and artistic consistency of outsourced art as established by project art direction.
- Facilitates or tracks timely feedback between the internal team and external partners to maintain schedule.
- Creates detailed documentation; organize reference art, asset examples, engine requirements and pipelines to provide partners clarity on their asset deliverables.
- Maintains correct naming conventions, source file organization and authoring practices.
- Creates and maintains project plans and schedules.
- Manages project resources and needs to meet production schedules and budgets.
- Establishes and facilitates a productive and communicative working environment
- Identifies and works with partners to resolve conflicts between schedule, budget and design goals.
- Recommends and implements new processes where efficiencies are needed to improve on-time or on-budget delivery.
- Facilitates effective and efficient meetings with clear goals and within set time constraints.
- Communicates/publishes meeting notes and results to interested parties in a timely manner.
Qualifications:
- Has had art outsourcing management, production, art integration or some equivalent responsibility set for multiple titles and/or multiple years, with good on-time and profitability history.
- Experience leading at least two art outsourcing efforts for successfully shipped titles with external art vendors
- Demonstrate an eye for composition, color, and form
- Have the ability to clearly communicate the artistic direction to outsource vendors
- Have excellent written and visual communication skills using outlook, word, excel and video conferencing
- Demonstrate experience in to integrating completed art assets into the Unreal Engine and assign correct materials and collision
- Have the skills to technically troubleshoot assets for quality and performance issues
- Good general comprehension of all aspects of multimedia / game production (graphics, design, programming, audio/video, QA, and localization).
- Excellent interpersonal skills including oral and written communication with ability to interface effectively with internal and external contributors.
- Ability to manage simultaneous projects on different platforms with short timelines.
- Have sound knowledge of software used for asset creation eg: Maya, Substance Painter/Designer, ZBrush, Unreal Engine
- Low drama personality with ability to achieve desired results with cordial interactions
Nice to have:
- Experience drafting new Statements of Work
- Have the skills to create 3D environment assets when outsourcing work is on hiatus
- Comprehensive knowledge of one or more game genres a plus – competitive products, demographics, market preferences and biases, etc..
- Knowledge of console hardware, operating systems, and standard APIs, including familiarity with development tools, and product submission procedures.
Lead VFX Artist
Hidden Path Entertainment is seeking a Lead Visual Effects Artist who is comfortable in Unreal Engine for a AAA, third-person, open-world fantasy RPG that will take place inside the Dungeons & Dragons franchise.
The ideal candidate must have a solid understanding of the modern effects pipeline and its implementation within Unreal Engine. As the Lead Visual Effects Artist, you will be responsible for maintaining AAA quality of all VFX that is being developed project-wide. The ideal candidate has experience driving look development, memory and frame budgets & production schedule for VFX needs. In this role you will be working closely with the Art Director, Creative Director and other art leads and various project stakeholders. A thorough understanding of real-time visual effects and mapping out solutions to solve unique artistic and technical problems using necessary tools & resources are essential to be successful in this role.
You should:
- Have 5+ years experience in video games as a lead or visual effects artist
- Have experience creating VFX in Unreal Engine, preferably in Niagara
- Have experience in look development of VFX assests
- Demonstrate strong communication and leadership abilities and be a mentor to other Vfx Artists
- Have both an aesthetic eye and technical proficiency in UE4
- Be passionate about your work and interested in pushing the boundaries of the discipline
- Have a strong work ethic, self-direction, and constant drive to make the game better
- Have clear verbal and written communication skills
- Be able to maintain positive interpersonal relationships with others
- Be organized and able to document your work such that others can understand it
- Make timely deliverables
- Have a love of and passion for games and entertainment
Duties & Responsibilities:
- Responsible for maintaining the AAA quality and artistic consistency of all VFX art, as established by project art direction
- Work with producers to create, organize, maintain and track schedules for VFX deliverables
- Create documentation, reference art, asset examples and pipelines to establish clear vision and direction to both in-house and vendor VFX teams
- Mentor and critique in-house VFX artists
- Identify and plan VFX elements in coordination with design team
- Identify and plan VFX hooks in coordination with engineering team
- Own VFX look development for the project
- Pre-visualize VFX assets
- Create in-game VFX assets
- Optimize VFX for perf/scalability
- Integrate and tune VFX using hooks provided by engineering team
- Refine / iterate VFX assets based on team feedback
- Communicate risks and proposed resolutions in a timely fashion
- Maintain workflow and pipeline docs for VFX
- Estimate time requirements for VFX assets
Nice to have:
- Procedural/physics-based simulation experience
- Alembic cache workflow from Houdini / Maya to UE4
- UE4 Cloth sim experience
- UE4 Chaos sim experience
- UE4 Niagara experience
- Familiarity with Confluence / JIRA / Perforce
Mid/Senior Level Designer
Responsibilities:
- Create new gameplay experiences for our open world, AAA RPG in a Dungeons & Dragons setting.
- Work closely with Game Designers, Artists, Programmers, Narrative Designers, Producers, and Creative Director to ensure gameplay standards are upheld, theme & IP remain consistent and strong, and levels look visually compelling.
- See levels through from greybox to completion. You will be responsible for level layout, gameplay, polish. You will collaborate with Combat Designers, Narrative & Art teams to ensure gameplay strongly complements and reinforces narrative.
Must have experience with:
- Game engine (Unreal Engine 4, Unity, CryEngine/Lumberyard, or similar).
- Greyboxing.
- Explaining design ideas using verbal & written skills (create meaningful documentation).
- Incorporating general feedback, as well as facilitating playtests to incorporate feedback.
- Creative conflict skills – Respectful of other’s ideas while ensuring your solutions are heard.
Nice to have experience with:
- Unreal Engine 4
- Scripting
- JIRA, Confluence, Perforce
- Knowledge of D&D and RPG’s
- Environment Art background – Understanding of how level construction & aesthetic layout work together. Bridge Level Design & Environment Art disciplines.
- Narrative focus – Thinks through how environmental storytelling can augment & reinforce the narrative of the space.
To Include:
- CV & Cover Letter: How are you a good fit for this role?
- Portfolio: Please ensure your portfolio is clear about specific project contributions, including examples of level greyboxing & game design documentation (with explanations of thought process).
Character Rigger
You will be responsible for Character Rigging and Setup in Maya and Unreal. This includes skeleton layout, skinning, cloth simulation, groom support, blendshape correctives and other deformation helpers to bring our Characters to life. You will also support the Animation Team in Maya and Unreal.
This role reports to the Animation Technical Director.
Skills and Experience:
- Strong understanding of Unreal Character Rigging systems, including the Physics Asset Editor, Cloth setup, all Animation asset types, Character Blueprints, Animation Blueprints, and Control Rig.
- Excellent knowledge of Maya joint skeleton creation including joint placement and orientation best practices, and secondary deformation helper setups for characters, vehicles, weapons and props.
- Ability to create high quality animation rigs for a large variety of believable characters and creatures in Maya, to utilize key frame as well as motion capture data.
- Advanced skills in skinning and auto-skinning.
- Understanding of human and animal anatomy to create quality deformation.
- Understanding of Unreal PBR material setups for wrinkle maps, and how to drive them from the animation system.
- Experience creating assets for a Character Customization or NPC generation system.Ability to retarget motion capture data onto rig setups when applicable.
- Familiarity with performance profiling, unit testing and run time trouble shooting in Unreal.
- Python, Pymel and Mel tools and pipeline support.
- Unreal Character Blueprint and Animation Blueprint support.
- A good understanding of Animation Principles, and knowledge of Animation Rigging Best Practices.
Bonus Skills:
- Facility using Skinning Decomposition, training and setup of Radial Basis Functions, and ability to sculpt and set up Pose Space Deformation
- Unreal C++ experience
- Face rigging experience
- Wrap3D experience
Education/Experience:
- Two to four years of experience in character setup, Python, and/or Mel scripting and a thorough understanding of all technical aspects of Maya animation as it applies to character setup
- Good communication skills
To apply, please email us at jobs@hiddenpath.com.
We thank you for your interest in employment with Hidden Path Entertainment.
Hidden Path’s Benefits:
-
- Robust health insurance options
- 401(k) with company contribution
- Paid parental leave
- Employee profit sharing
- Life insurance
- Vacation time plus paid holidays
- Unlimited sick leave
- Paid time off for professional conferences
- Volunteer PTO day
- Non-profit company matching
- No crunch policy
Internships
Regarding internships, we’re very sorry, but we’re too small a company for internship positions. Please contact us later in your career when you’re ready for high quality, self-directed, full time employment.