About the role
Location and Compensation
- Location: United States - Remote (EST - PST)
- Salary: $165.6k – $206.4k / year
Company Overview
Gardens Interactive builds games centered on connection, collective adventure, and emergent stories. The studio is fully remote and embraces thoughtful collaboration, continuous learning, and the courage to explore new ideas. Key studio contributors have worked on titles including Journey, What Remains of Edith Finch, Blaseball, Dustforce, Ashen, Guild Wars 2, and Baldur’s Gate 3.
Role Overview
The Art Lead manages the art organization across current and future games. This role oversees the health, performance, and effectiveness of the art team across all sub-disciplines, including Environment, Concept, Character, VFX, and Animation. Responsibilities include managing discipline leads and directly managing individual contributors where a dedicated lead is not yet in place. The role requires staying genuinely engaged with work in progress to catch issues early and partnering with the Art Director, Production, Design, Engineering, and studio leadership.
Responsibilities
Art Organization Leadership
- Lead and manage the art team across all sub-disciplines (Environment, Concept, Character, VFX, Animation, etc.).
- Manage, mentor, and develop discipline leads; hold them accountable for team health and delivery.
- Manage individual contributors directly when no dedicated lead is in place.
- Build a culture of ownership, clarity, constructive feedback, and continuous improvement.
Product Leadership
- Develop a deep understanding of the game's player experience, design goals, visual direction, and production priorities.
- Engage with work in progress to identify opportunities to improve quality, readability, and consistency.
- Partner with the Art Director to translate creative vision into achievable goals.
- Perform hands-on problem-solving to unblock the team or challenge assumptions.
Cross-Disciplinary Collaboration
- Partner closely with Design, Engineering, Production, and Creative Leadership.
- Advocate for the art team while remaining accountable to overall project needs and delivery goals.
- Drive decision-making when faced with ambiguity, disagreement, or cross-disciplinary dependencies.
Art Production & Execution
- Define and manage the art portion of the product scope with Production and studio leadership.
- Improve art pipelines, workflows, and tools to resolve execution inefficiencies.
- Oversee external art partners to ensure outsourced work meets the creative, technical, and quality bar.
Management & Team Growth
- Develop leads and individual contributors through clear expectations, actionable feedback, and performance management.
- Partner with studio leadership on recruiting, organizational structure, and evolving staffing needs.
A Day in the Life
- Check in with discipline leads regarding team health, priorities, and blockers.
- Review in-progress art to catch quality, readability, or consistency issues early.
- Partner with the Art Director to align art priorities with the game's vision.
- Resolve cross-disciplinary blockers with Design, Engineering, and Production.
- Coach discipline leads through feedback and career development.
Qualifications
- 6+ years of professional experience in game-development art production.
- Experience with multiple shipped titles as an artist or art leader.
- Significant experience managing, mentoring, and developing artists and art leads.
- Ability to build and evolve teams while holding staff accountable for performance and delivery.
- Strong understanding of responsibilities, workflows, and dependencies across multiple game-art disciplines.
- Strong product judgment; ability to evaluate art in the context of gameplay, player experience, and production scope.
- Strong cross-functional communication skills; ability to synthesize feedback and navigate disagreement.
- Experience working with external outsourcing vendors.
- Ability to operate both strategically and tactically without constant direction.
Nice to Have
- Previous experience leading a multi-disciplinary art organization.
- Deep understanding of Environment, Character, Concept, VFX, Animation, Technical Art, and related pipelines.
- Experience with stylized art and multiplayer games.
Team and Reporting
- Reports to: Chief of Staff
Culture and Work Environment
- The studio values asking questions, adapting to change, good judgment over perfection, and caring for team success.
- Requirements: Must be legally authorized to work in the United States or Canada. Must be willing to work within North American time zones (EST–PST).
- Physical Requirements: Primarily sedentary, remote role; requires the ability to remain stationary and perform computer-based work for a minimum of six hours per day using monitors, keyboards, mice, and game controllers.
Interview Process
- People Operations Introduction
- Hiring Manager Interview
- Panel Interview (3 - 1 Hour Sections)
- Gardeners Debrief
- Offer
Benefits
- Competitive salaries and pay transparency.
- Stock options.
- Medical, dental, and vision coverage (100% for individuals, 90% for dependents).
- Life insurance, short-term and long-term disability.
- 401(k) contributions (U.S.) / RRSP + DPSP contributions (Canada).
- Paid parental leave.
- Fully distributed remote studio.