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Virtual Artist Jobs (NOW HIRING)

Parallel Domain

Principal Technical Artist

Seattle, WA

$144K - $173K/yr

The virtual environments we build have to hold up under physical, geometric, and sensor-level ... We're hiring a Principal Technical Artist to bring the next generation of these workflows into ...

92nd Street Y

Visual Arts Teaching Artist

Manhattan, NY · On-site

$72/hr

Weekly classes and workshops are led by professional Artist Educators in the areas of ceramics ... For virtual class proposals - Clear understanding and experience using Zoom platform and all ...

TRICK 3D

TECHNICAL ARTIST

Atlanta, GA · On-site

$120K - $144K/yr

Company Description Here at TRICK 3D, we're building beautiful virtual worlds. Wanna join? TRICK 3D ... The ideal Technical Artist will be a technical problem-solver and have a passion for technical ...

Trick 3d

TECHNICAL ARTIST

Atlanta, GA

$120K - $144K/yr

Company Description Here at TRICK 3D, we're building beautiful virtual worlds. Wanna join? TRICK 3D ... The ideal Technical Artist will be a technical problem-solver and have a passion for technical ...

ARTHREX

OR

$126K - $151K/yr

Requisition ID: 66202 Title: Technical Artist III- UI/UX Main Objective : Assists in the ... VR/AR specific rendering features, Virtual Production, profiling and optimizing graphics.

Mass Virtual Inc

Graphic Artist

Orlando, FL · On-site

$116K - $138K/yr

Who We Are Mass Virtual is transforming how organizations train, learn, and perform through immersive technologies. We build cutting-edge XR (Extended Reality), simulation, and training solutions ...

ALLEY THEATRE

Teaching Artists

Houston, TX · On-site

JOB STATEMENT "A Teaching Artist is a practicing professional artist with the complementary skills ... Implement Alley-branded curricula through in-person and virtual workshops/residencies, both inside ...

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Virtual Artist information

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How much do virtual artist jobs pay per hour?

As of Jun 18, 2026, the average hourly pay for virtual artist in the United States is $30.24, according to ZipRecruiter salary data. Most workers in this role earn between $21.63 and $37.02 per hour, depending on experience, location, and employer.

How do Virtual Artists typically collaborate with clients and other team members in a remote environment?

Virtual Artists often work closely with clients, creative directors, and other artists through digital communication platforms. Regular meetings via video calls, sharing progress through project management tools, and providing updates with cloud-based portfolios are common practices. Successful collaboration requires clear communication, timely feedback, and adaptability to client preferences. Building strong working relationships remotely is key to ensuring that artistic visions are aligned and project deadlines are met.

What is a virtual artist?

A virtual artist is a creative professional who uses digital tools and technology to produce artworks, often within virtual environments or for digital platforms. Their work may include creating digital paintings, 3D models, animations, or virtual reality experiences, either for personal projects or commercial purposes such as video games, movies, or online galleries. Virtual artists often use software like Adobe Photoshop, Blender, or Procreate to bring their ideas to life. They may collaborate with other creatives, work as freelancers, or be part of a larger production team. The role requires a blend of artistic skill and technical proficiency.

What are the key skills and qualifications needed to thrive as a Virtual Artist, and why are they important?

To thrive as a Virtual Artist, you need a strong background in digital art, illustration, and design principles, often supported by a relevant degree or portfolio of work. Proficiency in industry-standard software such as Adobe Creative Suite, Blender, or Procreate is typically required. Creativity, attention to detail, and effective communication are crucial soft skills for collaborating with clients and interpreting creative briefs. These skills and qualifications ensure you can produce high-quality digital artwork that meets client expectations and adapts to evolving trends in virtual environments.

What is the difference between Virtual Artist vs 3D Artist?

AspectVirtual Artist3D Artist
CredentialsOften requires digital art, animation, or multimedia certificationsTypically needs 3D modeling, animation, or design certifications
Work EnvironmentPrimarily remote, working with virtual platforms and digital toolsCan be remote or on-site, focusing on 3D modeling and rendering
Industry UsageUsed in entertainment, virtual events, and digital mediaCommon in gaming, film, and product visualization

The Virtual Artist and 3D Artist roles share skills in digital art and design but differ mainly in focus. Virtual Artists specialize in creating digital content for virtual environments and media, often working remotely. 3D Artists focus on modeling, texturing, and rendering 3D assets for various industries like gaming and film. Both roles require strong technical skills, but their applications and work settings vary.

More about Virtual Artist jobs
What cities are hiring for Virtual Artist jobs? Cities with the most Virtual Artist job openings:
What are the most commonly searched types of Artist jobs? The most popular types of Artist jobs are:
What states have the most Virtual Artist jobs? States with the most job openings for Virtual Artist jobs include:
What job categories do people searching Virtual Artist jobs look for? The top searched job categories for Virtual Artist jobs are:
Virtual Artist jobs near you
Infographic showing various Virtual Artist job openings in the United States as of June 2026, with employment types broken down into 50% Full Time, and 50% Part Time. Highlights an 100% In-person job distribution, with an average salary of $62,907 per year, or $30.2 per hour.
Principal Technical Artist

Principal Technical Artist

Parallel Domain

Seattle, WA

$144K - $173K/yr

Full-time

Dental, Vision, PTO

Posted 21 days ago

Job description

About the Role

Before an autonomous vehicle navigates a busy intersection, before a robot learns to pick and place in a warehouse, before any Physical AI system is trusted in the real world, it has to prove itself in ours. Parallel Domain builds the platform that validates the next generation of autonomous systems in high-fidelity virtual environments.

Our content and rendering pipeline is how that platform earns its credibility with customers. The virtual environments we build have to hold up under physical, geometric, and sensor-level scrutiny-they are the testbeds against which our customers' autonomous systems are validated. Building environments at that level of fidelity and scale demands techniques that go beyond a typical AAA game pipeline. Gaussian splat scene reconstruction, neural rendering, AI-assisted content workflows, and modern procedural systems are reshaping what a tech artist's day looks like.

We're hiring a Principal Technical Artist to bring the next generation of these workflows into production at Parallel Domain. This is a senior individual contributor role: you'll work alongside our rendering, simulation, and content engineers on open-ended content and pipeline problems. You'll move fluently between Unreal Engine, Houdini, Python, shader code, and modern AI tooling, and your judgment will shape how our team builds the environments that train and validate autonomous systems.

Responsibilities

  • Own the technical content stack. End to end: asset pipelines, procedural tooling, material systems, performance budgets, and content validation that turn an artist's intent into a production-ready scene.

  • Build and ship tools. Deliver tooling in Unreal Engine and Houdini that makes the content team measurably faster. We care less about the elegance of the tool and more about whether artists are using it next quarter to ship work they couldn't ship before.

  • Drive AI-augmented workflows. Bring modern techniques into content creation: gaussian splat scene reconstruction, neural texture synthesis, ML-assisted asset generation, and the next wave of techniques as they emerge. Hold an opinionated view on where these tools belong in a production pipeline and where they don't.

  • Optimize real-time performance. Profile and optimize across GPU and CPU in Unreal Engine, supporting both interactive use and large-scale batch simulation. Identify bottlenecks, codify the fixes as patterns, and make sure the team isn't relearning the same lessons every six months.

  • Work across disciplines. Operate as connective tissue across content, rendering, simulation, ML, and product. Translate between disciplines, broker tradeoffs between content fidelity and runtime performance, and make sure the systems we build hang together.

  • Set the craft bar. We're not asking you to manage people, but we expect you to lead by example on the craft side. Your work should make the people around you better at theirs.

  • Move quickly. Ship into production early and often. Many of the problems you'll work on don't have a known answer-your job is to scope the unknown, prototype something that works, and harden it from there.

  • Use AI tooling actively. LLM-assisted coding, scripting, and asset generation can meaningfully accelerate the work when applied well. We expect fluency here and active contribution to the team's practice.
 
Required Qualifications

  • Experience. 8+ years as a technical artist or in a closely adjacent role, with at least one shipped product on a real-time, physically based rendering pipeline.

  • Unreal Engine 5 expertise. Expert-level proficiency including materials, Blueprints, performance profiling, the asset pipeline, and the engine's deeper rendering features. You can debug a frame budget, fix a broken shader, and ship a Blueprint utility in the same afternoon.

  • Programming fluency. Productive across some combination of Python, C++, HLSL, VEX, and shell. You reach for code rather than manual process whenever possible.

  • Production speed. Demonstrated ability to take open-ended content or workflow problems, scope them yourself, and ship working systems the team adopts-without extensive hand-holding.

  • AI workflow fluency. Working command of LLM-based coding tools, generative content tooling (e.g., diffusion models, ComfyUI), and the broader category of AI tools reshaping technical art. You stay on top of where these tools are heading and bring that thinking into the team's practice.

  • Communication. Equally comfortable talking shaders with rendering engineers, performance with simulation engineers, and tradeoffs with non-technical product partners.

  • Generalist disposition. Able to move pragmatically across content creation, tooling, rendering, performance, and pipeline. We're not looking for someone narrowly specialized in one corner of technical art.
 
Preferred Qualifications

  • Neural scene reconstruction. Hands-on experience with gaussian splatting, NeRFs, or similar techniques in a production or near-production setting.

  • Procedural content generation. Experience in Houdini or equivalent (Maya, Blender, 3DS Max, Unreal PCG), including authoring HDAs and integrating them into a real-time pipeline.

  • Sensor simulation. Familiarity with RGB cameras, LiDAR, radar, and the visual artifacts that matter to autonomous-system perception models.

  • Distributed/cloud pipelines. Experience with distributed rendering or cloud-based content pipelines.

  • Computational background. Mathematics, physics, or computational graphics that lets you reason from first principles when a problem demands it.
 
What Success Looks Like

In your first six months, you'll have:

  • Integrated into the production pipeline and shipped meaningful content using our in-house tools.

  • Delivered tooling in Houdini or Unreal Engine that improves content team velocity.

  • Built strong working relationships with engineering, simulation, rendering, and DevOps stakeholders.

  • Influenced the technical roadmap with at least one concrete bet that ships customer value.

What Makes a Great Candidate
You're a generalist who's excellent at technical art, equally at home in rendering, tooling, content, and performance. You hold strong opinions about the craft but treat your tools as instruments, not identity. You're a builder, not a planner: you scope, prototype, ship, and iterate. You're paying close attention to how AI tooling is changing technical art and you want to be hands-on with that change.
Base salary range of CAD $145,000-$175,000, depending on skills, qualifications, and experience, plus equity, full health/dental/vision coverage, learning stipend, and generous vacation. This role is based remotely or hybrid in the Pacific Northwest (Vancouver, BC or Seattle, WA).
We may use artificial intelligence (AI) tools to support parts of the hiring process, such as reviewing applications, analyzing resumes, or assessing responses and identifying potential inconsistencies or verification signals in application materials based on available information. These tools assist our recruitment team but do not replace human judgment. Final hiring decisions are ultimately made by humans. If you would like more information about how your data is processed, please contact us.
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