Rendering Engineer

Blackbird Interactive is a creative-fueled, future-driven, independent game studio where the best talent in the industry can find long-term careers to help grow their abilities while working on a wide range of projects, which encompass world-class IPs as well as our own creations across multiple genres.

Our studio operates as a remote-first workplace, offering flexible work arrangements.

At this time, we are only able to hire candidates who are legally eligible to work in Canada and reside within Canada.

Renowned for innovative projects and our pioneering four-day work week, we are seeking an experienced Rendering Engineer (intermediate or senior) to help build and optimize a visually ambitious title in a proprietary engine.

You will work across real-time rendering systems and content pipelines with a focus on console implementation and optimization, including PS5 (AGC), Xbox Series X|S (DirectX 12), and Switch 2 (NVN).

This role is remote-friendly in Canada ( Pacific-time overlap required).

What You’ll Tackle

• Own and evolve rendering features and performance across PC and current-gen consoles in a proprietary engine.
• Implement and optimize platform rendering backends, including PS5 (AGC), Xbox Series (DirectX 12), and Switch 2 (NVN), with attention to platform-specific constraints and best practices.
• Drive visual quality and scalability across a modern rendering stack (e.g., virtualized geometry/mesh streaming, global illumination strategies, modern shadowing solutions, temporal upscaling, etc.) adapted to each target platform.
• Profile and optimize GPU/CPU frame time, frame pacing, and hitching using platform and internal profiling/capture tools.
• Partner with art and tech art to define content constraints and best practices for performance-friendly assets, materials, shaders, lighting, and VFX.
• Support large-world production needs such as streaming strategy, LOD/HLOD workflows, and memory behavior, tuned for console budgets.
• Diagnose and resolve visual artifacts and stability issues (e.g., shadow/light artifacts, temporal instability, shader regressions, precision issues, platform-specific bugs).
• Contribute to rendering-related tooling and workflows (debug views, perf HUDs, automated performance reporting, validation checks, regression detection).
• Provide clear technical communication to production and stakeholders on constraints, trade-offs, risk, and performance budgets.

You’ll Thrive Here If You

• 3+ years of professional game development experience (we are hiring at both intermediate and senior levels; title/level will match experience).Strong modern C++ and systems-level debugging skills.
• Solid understanding of real-time rendering fundamentals: lighting, shadows, materials/shaders, post-processing, GPU architecture considerations, and temporal techniques.
• Demonstrated experience improving performance, stability, and visual correctness in a production environment.
• Comfort collaborating cross-discipline to align visual targets with platform budgets (GPU, CPU, memory, streaming).
• Ability to take ownership, deliver maintainable solutions, and contribute constructively to team standards.

Bonus Experience

• Shipped at least one title on PS5, Xbox Series X|S, and/or Nintendo Switch hardware, especially with rendering/performance responsibility.
• Hands-on experience building or shipping modern rendering features (e.g., virtualized geometry systems, GI solutions, scalable shadowing, temporal AA/upscalers) and mitigating artifacts.
• Experience with large-world streaming and LOD/HLOD pipelines, memory management, and asset/shader scalability.
• Familiarity with real-time VFX performance considerations and shader/VFX cost control.
• Experience with platform profiling/capture workflows (e.g., PIX, RenderDoc, and equivalent console tooling).Experience building rendering/performance tooling that improves team velocity and reduces regressions.

$110,000 - $155,000 a year