Positions
Hiring Philosophy
We're constantly looking to expand our team with exceptional individuals who have the drive to help us develop great video games. We are on the lookout for senior level candidates with a proven industry track record who don't shy away from challenges and confidently feel they are among the best in their field. All of our positions require a love of games, strong work ethic and excellent communication skills. Due to our relatively small development staff, firm deadlines and informal structure, each potential team member should be a capable self-starter and able to manage their time and tasks independently.
Why Midnight? We're a relatively small team with a highly collaborative work environment - we value feedback about any aspect of our game development from any of our team members. Maintaining our work environment as a supportive, enthusiastic, and safe place to express opinions is an important goal for us and a responsibility for everyone who works here.
If you think you have what it takes to join our talented team, please review our current openings below. If you don't see your desired position listed, just send us your cover letter and resume - along with a demo reel, sample code or portfolio - to jobs@midnight-studios.net or mail to our Austin office on the corner of Research and Burnet at 9211 Waterford Centre Blvd, Suite 200, Austin, TX 78758.
ART
Texture Artist
- Requirements and Skills:
- Proficient at texturing surface details & material effects on objects ranging from trees to metal corridors.
- Excellent eye for filling in missing detail from concept art, and extracting key features from real world reference.
- Comfortable with minimal direction and be flexible with realistic rendering styles.
- Pluses:
- Photoshop, Maya shading networks or game production is preferred
Please submit cover letter, resume and reels (online preferred) with samples of your professional work along with a breakdown of your specific contributions to jobs@midnight-studios.net -- please list "TEXTURE ARTIST" in the subject line -- or to the mailing address above.
Character Artist
- Responsibilities:
- This digital sculptor will be responsible for making million poly models game ready, and support highest-res characters for renderings.
- This individual will create clean, deformable and efficient models, extract normal maps from high-res versions and sculpt morph targets for use within a Maya/ZBrush pipeline.
- Requirements:
- Prior professional experience with normal map extraction of human models for next-gen games.
- An advanced knowledge of human anatomy is required for this role.
- This position is best suited for modelers who prefer to sculpt and paint texture for their models as well.
- Candidates should be able to work with minimal input and be comfortable working in a team environment.
Candidates can expect to take an offsite test.
Submitted reels and portfolios must include examples of work, turntables of high-res & low-res polygon models, and a breakdown of your specific contribution to the submitted material, along with resume featuring references.
Please submit all of the above materials to jobs@midnight-studios.net -- please list "CHARACTER ARTIST" in the subject line -- or send to the mailing address above.
Concept Artist
- Responsibilities:
- Demonstrate a broad range of excellent drawing abilities.
- Demonstrate complete mastery of game development software tools needed for concept creation.
- Collaborates effectively with art leads during review sessions which results in the finest artistic look possible.
- Meets project deadlines / milestones, as set by project leads.
- Consistently exercises sound judgment in all areas of expertise.
- Requirements:
- A demo portfolio demonstrating excellent drawing skills.
- Work must clearly demonstrate exceptional ability in the areas of artistic, stylistic and versatility.
- BFA or equivalent game development experience strongly preferred.
- Fine art skills, drawing and painting, lighting and color.
- 2 years of professional experience working as a concept artist or texturer in computer gaming or a related field.
- Proficiency working in Photoshop.
- Excellent organizational, communication and interpersonal skills.
- Must be receptive to art direction and perform well within a team setting.
- Must be responsive to schedules and work well under pressure.
Submitted reels and portfolios must include examples of professional work and a breakdown of your specific contribution to the submitted material, along with resume featuring references.
Please submit all of the above materials to jobs@midnight-studios.net
-- please list "CONCEPT ARTIST" in the subject line -- or send to the mailing address above.
Effects/Dynamics Artist
- Responsibilities:
- Breaking-up environment geometry and running Maya dynamic simulations of their destruction.
- Preserving existing UV information and generating new UVs as needed after fragmenting the geometry.
- Creating and animating particles for destructible objects and other effects.
- Ensuring that dynamic effects run within established game-engine operating parameters, and scaling level of detail as needed to accomplish this.
- Working in other disciplines in down-time, such as prop modeling, texturing, or particles.
- Providing feedback to tools programmers and coordinating efforts with other dynamic artists to streamline methods and improve efficiency.
- Working closely with designers to fine-tune the timing of complex interactive dynamic effects.
- Creating cloth motion simulations, and fine tuning them for aesthetic effect.
- Coordinate with background artists to seamlessly integrate dynamic effects into environments.
- Setting up objects for real-time destructibility.
- Requirements:
- Extensive experience working with Maya dynamics, including cloth.
- Proficiency with Maya modeling and UV tools.
- 3 to 5 years of Video Game or Visual Effects dynamics experience
- Particle experience in Maya or equivalent software.
- Mel scripting experience a plus.
- Havok experience a plus.
- Must be willing to take a dynamics test, and provide samples or a demo reel showing applicable experience.
Submitted reels and portfolios must include examples of professional work and a breakdown of your specific contribution to the submitted material, along with resume featuring references.
Please submit all of the above materials to jobs@midnight-studios.net -- please list "EFFECTS/DYNAMICS ARTIST" in the subject line -- or to the mailing address above.
DESIGN
Game Designer
- Responsibilities:
- Responsible for the planning, layout, setup, and tuning of game levels
- Responsible for designing and producing engaging and fun third-person action game-play and levels/battlegrounds.
- Act as producer for levels you design, as well as other parts of the game, collaborating across disciplines to get work done and clear dependencies, ensuring deadlines are met, and championing aspects of the game-play.
- Work directly with artists, programmers, animators and other game designers to contribute to the vision of the game.
- Responsible for level layout by creating simplified level geometry and performing extensive play-testing and iteration.
- Work with programmers to develop tools on an ongoing basis.
- Requirements:
- Experience designing levels for console games
- Minimum 3 to 5 years of games industry experience
- Strong methodology and problem solving ability and with a focus on creative, fun and innovative solutions
- Strong and effective communication skills
- Exceptional team player with the ability to collaborate without losing sight of the game-play vision
- Willingness to take design direction when offered
- Very good working knowledge of Maya, 3DS Max or similar 3D package
- Pluses:
- Experience of developing third-person action games a bonus
- Experience of scripting set-up for action games a bonus
Please submit cover letter, resume and reels (online preferred) with samples of your professional work along with a breakdown of your specific contributions to jobs@midnight-studios.net -- please list "GAME DESIGNER" in the subject line -- or send to the mailing address above.
Game-play Scripter
- Requirements and Skills:
- Strong programming skills (Computer Science undergraduate degree preferred)
- Games scripting experience strongly preferred
- Strong methodology and problem solving ability and with a focus on creative, fun and innovative solutions
- Strong and effective communication skills and organizational ability
- Pro-active attitude
- Exceptional team player with the ability to collaborate without losing sight of the game-play vision
- Willingness to take design direction when offered
- Very good working knowledge of Maya, 3DS Max or similar 3D package
- Experience with 3D level editors
- Strong game design sense: must be able to intelligently discuss the strengths of weaknesses of other games.
- Pluses:
- Familiarity with a LISP or Scheme-like language
- Experience of developing third-person action games
- Good sense of cinematography and pacing
Please submit cover letter, resume and reels (online preferred) with samples of your professional work along with a breakdown of your specific contributions to jobs@midnight-studios.net -- please list "GAMEPLAY SCRIPTER" in the subject line -- or send to the mailing address above.
PROGRAMMING
Graphics Programmer
Responsibilities:
- Excellent Math Skills
- 5+ years of professional games experience
- DirectX 9/10/11 and/or OpenGL expertise using modern rendering techniques and a familiarity with
Play Station 3, Xbox360 and other graphics hardware
- Ability to design, author, and maintain complex tools used in different parts of
the production pipeline
- Ability to implement and optimise advanced rendering systems on a variety of gaming
hardware including but not limited too PC, Xbox360, PS3, Wii, DS, PSP, iPhone/iPad,
Droid, etc.
- Requirements:
-
- Experience using DCC applications (3DStudio/Maya/Photoshop/XSI/...)
- Knowledge of scripting languages a plus
- GUI art/design skills
Please submit cover letter, resume and reels (online preferred) with samples of
your professional work along with a breakdown of your specific contributions to
jobs@midnight-studios.net -- please list "GRAPHICS PROGRAMMER" in the subject line
-- or to the mailing address above.
GUI Tools Programmer
- Responsibilities:
- Excellent Math Skills
- 3-5 years of professional games experience
- C++, C#, and C++/CLI expertise
- Experience in creating the following PC applications: level editor (actor placement, navigation meshes, particles, boundary regions, etc), art prototype catalogue/database, animation/cinematic editor, material/shader editor, plug-ins, build tools, data massaging tools, lighting tools
- Experience in using the following technologies: Maya Plug-in API, SQL, DirectX/OpenGL,
CG/HLSL, COLLADA
- Ability to design, author, and maintain complex tools used in different parts of the production pipeline
- Requirements:
- Experience using DCC applications (3DStudio/Maya/Photoshop/XSI/...)
- Knowledge of scripting languages (Python/MelScript/Lua/VBScript.)
- GUI art/design skills
Please submit cover letter, resume and reels (online preferred) with samples of your professional work along with a breakdown of your specific contributions to jobs@midnight-studios.net -- please list "GUI TOOLS PROGRAMMER" in the subject line -- or to the mailing address above.
Game-play Programmer
- Responsibilities:
- Create clean, efficient, and well tested code
- Programming content like enemy AI, weapons, character controls, and other functionality within an established framework.
- Create technical specifications for game-play systems that meet the requirements of the design and art teams
- Implement game specific engine systems and game-play support systems that meet requirements
- Fleshing out, expanding, and implementing game designs
- Analyzing, organizing, and optimizing code
- Requirements:
- Strong 3D math and graphics background
- Strong knowledge of C and C++ programming languages
- Good oral and written skills
- Ability and drive to contribute and advance all aspects of a game
- Excellent math skills
- Experience with PS3 development
- Understanding of procedural, object oriented, and aspect oriented programming paradigms.
- Console programming experience
- B.S. in Computer Science and/or Mathematics or equivalent work experience
Please submit cover letter, resume and reels (online preferred) with samples of your professional work along with a breakdown of your specific contributions to jobs@midnight-studios.net -- please list "GAMEPLAY PROGRAMMER" in the subject line -- or send to the mailing address above.
