VFX Artist

Naughty Dog is hiring a VFX Artist to join their team in Santa Monica, California on a temporary basis through staffing partner Yoh Enterprise Solutions. This role sits within the studio’s real-time effects department, where the artist is responsible for building and implementing particle systems, materials, and environmental effects directly inside the game engine. It suits a mid-to-senior level effects professional with a background in game development or a strong reel from film, television, or commercial VFX production.

About the Role

The VFX Artist joins a team currently in production on Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet, Naughty Dog’s next title following the critically recognized Last of Us series. Day-to-day work involves conceiving effects from scratch, building them inside a proprietary engine environment, and optimizing them to run efficiently on target hardware without sacrificing visual quality. The VFX pipeline here is grounded in strong art fundamentals as much as technical execution, so both sides of that equation need to be genuinely strong.

Key Responsibilities

• Design and implement real-time visual effects including particle systems, simulations, and shader-driven materials within the studio’s game engine.
• Optimize effects to meet platform performance budgets while maintaining the visual fidelity expected of a AAA production.
• Review the production backlog independently and identify effects work that needs to be picked up without waiting to be assigned.
• Collaborate with the broader effects team to maintain visual consistency across scenes, environments, and character moments.
• Troubleshoot technical and artistic problems in the VFX pipeline and see solutions through to completion with minimal supervision.
• Apply a disciplined eye for form, color, timing, and composition to every effect, from ambient environmental work to hero moments.

What You Bring

• Hands-on experience creating sprite-based particle effects and custom materials inside a real-time game engine, or equivalent professional VFX experience from film, television, or commercial production that has aired.
• Demonstrated ability to optimize real-time effects for GPU and CPU performance constraints on console or PC platforms.
• A portfolio or reel showing strong command of timing, color, and composition across a range of effect types.
• Comfort working in a hybrid or onsite studio environment as part of a structured production team.
• Candidates must be authorized to work in the United States.

Why This Role

Naughty Dog has a genuine track record in character-driven, high-fidelity production, and this position puts the VFX Artist directly on one of the most anticipated titles currently in development at any studio. The role is eligible for medical, dental, and vision benefits, and the estimated hourly pay range is $57.98 to $72.45 USD. For an effects artist looking to work inside a respected AAA VFX pipeline on a high-profile project, this is a credible next step.

Apply now for the VFX Artist position at Naughty Dog and bring your real-time effects work to one of the industry’s most recognized studios.