Senior Technical Artist at Garmin International
Company: Garmin International
Location: Olathe, Kansas OR Cary, North Carolina, United States
Job Type: Regular Full-Time
Salary: Not Disclosed
About Garmin International
Garmin International develops innovative GPS-enabled technology across aviation, marine, automotive, fitness, and outdoor markets. At its U.S. headquarters in the Greater Kansas City area and additional locations nationwide, Garmin fosters a culture of innovation, collaboration, and technical excellence to create cutting-edge interactive products.
Job Overview
Garmin is seeking a Senior Technical Artist to support its golf product initiatives. In this full-time role, you will create and optimize high-fidelity content within hardware and software constraints to power real-time and post-processed interactive customer-facing experiences.
This position requires strong technical art leadership, deep knowledge of real-time graphics pipelines, and experience shipping interactive titles.
Key Responsibilities
- Lead and mentor developers and artists across multiple projects and objectives.
- Innovate and rapidly prototype while collaborating cross-functionally.
- Develop tools and workflows to improve art and development efficiency.
- Utilize 3D game engines, modeling software, and Houdini to support product development.
- Establish and maintain graphic production pipelines.
- Communicate technical constraints clearly to creative and development teams.
- Serve as a point of contact for asset production and technical troubleshooting.
- Drive performance optimization through profiling tools and standards.
- Produce documentation for tools, processes, and engine limitations.
- Maintain cost-conscious innovation practices.
Qualifications & Skills
- Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Game Development, Computer Graphics, or related field, plus 5+ years of relevant experience (or equivalent combination).
- Experience in technical art roles within gaming or interactive industries.
- At least one shipped title.
- Strong knowledge of 3D graphics principles and real-time rendering techniques (PBR, shaders, normal maps, displacement).
- Expertise in shading, lighting, and optimization workflows.
- Proficiency in 3D and 2D tools such as 3ds Max, Houdini, Substance Designer, Substance Painter, and Photoshop.
- Experience with major game engines such as Unity or Unreal Engine.
- Familiarity with asset management systems (Git, Perforce, VSS, Alienbrain).
- Working knowledge of Python, C++, C#, VEX, and/or JavaScript.
- Ability to work independently and demonstrate ownership across cross-functional teams.
Preferred Qualifications:
- Ability to create engine-ready assets from modeling through optimization.
- Experience in modeling, environments, camera systems, or UI.
- Entrepreneurial mindset with a passion for innovation.
- Experience launching new and innovative products or services.
Benefits & Work Environment
- Eligibility for Garmin’s comprehensive benefits program.
- Opportunity to work on innovative, customer-facing interactive products.
- Collaborative and technology-driven team culture.
- Professional growth and leadership opportunities.