About the role
Job Summary
Stardock is seeking a full-time, in-house Studio Art Director to define and guide the visual direction for its games. The role involves partnering with engineering, design, production, and art teams to create cohesive, readable, high-quality visuals for systems-heavy PC strategy titles. The position requires comfort with generative AI tools and workflows, advanced game technology, and providing clear feedback to help artists deliver work that supports gameplay clarity, worldbuilding, performance, and production realities. This position is located in Plymouth, Michigan, and relocation assistance will be provided.
Primary Responsibilities
- Own the overall visual direction and aesthetics of Stardock game projects, including UI, art style, environments, units, effects, lighting, presentation, and visual polish.
- Establish visual targets, quality bars, reference materials, and style guidance for the art team.
- Partner with design, production, engineering, and QA to deliver high-quality visuals that support deep strategy gameplay and long-lived PC game communities.
- Provide direct visual feedback throughout all stages of production, from concept through implementation and final polish.
- Create practical implementation strategies to achieve aesthetic goals within schedule, tooling, performance, and production constraints.
- Guide art production pipelines to maximize quality, efficiency, consistency, and iteration speed.
- Work with technical artists and engineers on tools, shaders, materials, rendering, optimization, and asset integration.
- Manage outsourcers and freelancers as needed to support production load and maintain visual consistency.
- Get hands-on when needed by creating or refining high-quality 3D models, textures, materials, lighting, animations, or other production assets.
- Push visual boundaries using Stardock's current and next-generation game technology.
Education and Experience
- Proven art leader with experience producing high-quality game visuals.
- Must have shipped at least one major title in a Lead Artist, Art Director, or equivalent art leadership role.
- 5+ years of professional experience in the games industry; more senior experience preferred for studio-wide ownership.
- Portfolio demonstrating strong visual judgment, production-ready execution, and game art leadership.
- Strong understanding of game art production pipelines from concept through implementation.
- Experience giving clear, actionable feedback to artists across disciplines.
- Experience concepting and/or creating hard-surface assets such as vehicles, weapons, ships, structures, or other strategy-game-relevant assets.
- Expert-level familiarity with Autodesk Maya and/or 3ds Max, Adobe Photoshop, and modern game art workflows.
- High proficiency in lighting, rendering, texturing, materials, and visual composition.
- Expertise with PBR pipelines, software, and assets.
- Ability to work well under deadlines, manage multiple priorities, and collaborate in a cross-discipline team environment.
Nice to Have
- Sci-fi, strategy, RTS, 4X, simulation, or large-scale battlefield/space game experience.
- Experience supporting UI readability and visual hierarchy for complex strategy games.
- Experience with outsourcing direction, vendor feedback, and asset review workflows.
- Familiarity with Unreal Engine, proprietary engines, or advanced rendering/technical art pipelines.
- Experience working closely with engineering teams on performance, shaders, tools, or engine constraints.
Company Information
Stardock Systems, Inc. is a software development company founded in 1991. The company is best known for computer programs that modify or extend graphical user interfaces and for PC strategy games including the Galactic Civilizations series, Sins of a Solar Empire, and Fallen Enchantress. The Stardock Entertainment division develops titles such as Star Control: Origins, The Political Machine series, and the Galactic Civilizations series. Stardock also publishes titles for third-party developers, including Off-World Trading Company, Ashes of the Singularity, and Demigod.