Principal Technical Artist

This role sits within our Peoplefun studio.

PeopleFun is an award-winning creator of mobile games for players across the globe. We are part of Tripledot Studios, one of the world's largest independent mobile game companies, with world-class projects, resources, and infrastructure. PeopleFun is a Dallas-based game studio founded and led by game industry veterans, where game developers thrive on collaboration, creativity, teamwork, and fun. Our games are played by over 25 million players each month, and we have a number of exciting mobile games in development to fuel the future growth of PeopleFun.

We believe in bringing People together through Fun by creating the best in class social features and communities in our games that enables our players to engage deeply with other players. Secondly we endeavor to bring our studio teammates together by creating the very best game teams that foster healthy collaboration, incredible productivity, and life-long professional relationships.

Position Overview

PeopleFun is seeking a Principal Technical Artist to help stand up a brand new game team and shape the visual and technical foundation of a new casual mobile title. You will be one of the earliest people on the project, working shoulder to shoulder with artists, engineers, and designers to get ideas on screen fast, learn from them, and turn the ones that work into durable pipelines, shaders, tools, and systems.

This is a deeply technical role for someone who thinks in pipelines and profilers but still has the eye of an artist. You will own how art gets authored, integrated, optimized, and rendered, including the game's VFX and its UI implementation in Unity UI Toolkit, and you will set the technical standards the rest of the team builds against as it grows.

Responsibilities

• Rapidly prototype visual and technical ideas to help the team evaluate direction, prove out feasibility, and find the fun early.
• Architect and implement art pipelines, tools, and workflows from scratch, scaling them as the team and project grow.
• Author shaders and rendering solutions that deliver the intended look while staying within mobile performance and memory budgets.
• Author production-quality VFX/PFX yourself — particle effects, shader-driven effects, and animated feedback — and build the systems and tooling that let others create them.
• Establish UI implementation standards in Unity UI Toolkit, including hierarchy structure, layout systems, and responsive behavior across mobile resolutions, aspect ratios, and safe areas.
• Define technical specifications and asset standards, and build validation tooling that keeps assets compliant as the project scales.
• Profile and optimize art content — draw calls, overdraw, atlasing, texture and memory budgets, load times, and runtime performance across device tiers.
• Develop tools and scripts in C#, Python, or similar to automate repetitive art and build tasks, including asset export, import, and marketing asset generation.
• Debug and resolve visual and performance issues, finding creative solutions within platform constraints.
• Stay current with developments in mobile graphics, tools, and techniques, proactively bringing best practices into production.

Requirements

• 5+ years of professional experience as a Technical Artist in mobile games, with a demonstrated track record of technical depth and artistic judgment.
• Extensive hands-on Unity experience, including the render pipeline, asset pipeline, prefab and scene architecture, and editor tooling.
• Strong proficiency in shader development, lighting, and rendering techniques.
• Demonstrated ability to author VFX/PFX to a shippable quality bar, with a reel or portfolio showing your own effects work.
• Proven track record of prototyping and rapid iteration, with the judgment to know when to move fast and when to build something that lasts.
• Demonstrated expertise with Unity UI Toolkit — layout systems, hierarchy design, UXML/USS, and responsive UI implementation for mobile.
• Deep understanding of optimizing art assets for mobile platforms, including memory management, profiling, and performance debugging.
• Proven experience building tools and scripts for art pipelines using C#, Python, or similar languages.
• Solid grounding in 2D art, animation, and UI design principles, with enough craft sensibility to evaluate and elevate the work of the art team.
• Excellent problem-solving skills, with the ability to work both independently and collaboratively in a fast-paced, cross-functional team.

Preferred Qualifications

• Prior professional experience within casual mobile gaming, including a deep understanding of the visual style and player expectations.
• Prior experience joining or founding a new game team, and comfort operating without established process or precedent.
• Prior experience taking a title from pre-production through soft launch, building visual and technical solutions from the ground up.
• Experience automating or supporting marketing and store asset production through tooling.
• Applied knowledge of animation systems, procedural asset generation, and VFX pipelines.
• Familiarity with mobile graphics limitations and strategies for maximizing visual impact within those constraints.
• Experience setting technical direction across multiple disciplines or mentoring other technical artists.
• Adaptability to new technologies and tools, with a proactive approach to learning and implementing new techniques.

Working at Tripledot

• Comprehensive Health & Wellness Coverage - We offer extended health, dental, and wellness benefits. Coverage becomes effective on your start date, provided your enrolment forms have been completed.
• Wellness Spending Account - Employees receive a $500 annual Wellness Spending Account to support their physical well-being, personal development and lifestyle interests.
• Generous Vacation Time - Employees receive 25 vacation days annually, in addition to statutory holidays.
• Parental Leave & Family Support - We offer a generous parental leave program and foster a supportive, family-friendly workplace culture.
• RRSP Matching - We match 100% of employee RRSP contributions up to 3.5% of annual salary, helping you build long-term financial security.
• Employee Assistance Program - Confidential support and resources are available whenever needed through our Employee Assistance Program.
• Hybrid Work Environment - We operate on a hybrid work model, with in-office collaboration Monday through Thursday and a flexible work-from-home day on Fridays. Employees also enjoy complimentary breakfast, lunch and evening snacks on all office days.
• Team Events & Celebrations - We regularly host social events and celebrations to recognize achievements, strengthen connections, and build a positive workplace culture.
• Professional Development - We are committed to employee growth and encourage career advancement through ongoing learning and professional development opportunities.

The anticipated base salary range for this role is CAD $150,000–$170,000. Compensation decisions are made based on the unique qualifications, experience and circumstances of each candidate. Actual compensation is determined based on a variety of factors, including, but not limited to an individual's skills, experience, education, training, licenses and certifications (where applicable), as well as business and organizational needs. The final compensation package will be based on the specific position offered in addition to a full range of medical and other benefits. 

Tripledot Studios is proud to be an equal-opportunity employer that is committed to inclusion and diversity. All applicants will be considered for employment without attention to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, veteran or disability status, or other legally protected characteristics.

As part of our interview process, we may use AI-enabled tools to assist with note-taking and summarizing conversations. These tools are used only to support our recruiters and interviewers. They are not used to screen applications or make hiring decisions. All candidate evaluations and hiring decisions are made by people.

This opening is for an existing vacancy.

All legitimate Tripledot roles are only posted on our official careers page and LinkedIn and we do not conduct job interviews via messaging apps like WhatsApp, Telegram or others. We never ask for personal or financial information during interviews. Sensitive information is only ever requested after a formal written offer through official channels.  Any attempt to do so may be the result of a scam or phishing attack, and you should not engage. Our in-house recruitment team will only contact individuals through their official Company email addresses (tripledotstudios.com)