Art Lead

At Gardens Interactive, we're building games centered on connection, collective adventure, and emergent stories. We believe the spirit with which we build games is reflected in the experiences our players have. The way we collaborate, solve problems, navigate uncertainty, and care for one another ultimately shapes the worlds we create.

We're a fully remote studio that embraces thoughtful collaboration, continuous learning, and the courage to explore new ideas. If you're energized by solving complex problems, excited by ambiguity, and inspired by building worlds where friendships flourish, we'd love to meet you.

As the Art Lead, you will...

Lead and manage the art organization across our current and future games. This role owns the health, performance, and effectiveness of the art team across all sub-disciplines, including Environment, Concept, Character, VFX, and Animation , managing discipline leads while directly managing individual contributors where a dedicated lead isn't yet in place.

This isn't solely a people-management role. We're looking for an art leader who stays genuinely curious about the game itself: someone who regularly engages with work in progress, spots opportunities and problems before they compound, and helps move both the game and the art organization forward.

You'll work closely with the Art Director, Production, Design, Engineering, and studio leadership, advocating for your team while staying accountable to feedback, product needs, and cross-disciplinary concerns.

A Day in the Life

• Check in with discipline leads on team health, priorities, and blockers.
• Dive into in-progress art to catch quality, readability, or consistency issues early.
• Partner with the Art Director to keep art priorities aligned with the game's vision.
• Work through cross-disciplinary blockers with Design, Engineering, and Production.
• Coach discipline leads through feedback and career development.

What You'll Do

Art Organization Leadership

• Lead and manage the art team across all sub-disciplines: Environment, Concept, Character, VFX, Animation , and other art functions.
• Manage, mentor, and develop discipline leads, holding them accountable for the health and delivery of their teams; directly manage individual contributors where a dedicated lead isn't yet in place.
• Build a culture of ownership, clarity, constructive feedback, and continuous improvement across the art team.

Product Leadership

• Develop a deep understanding of the game's player experience, design goals, visual direction, and production priorities.
• Stay closely engaged with work in progress across art disciplines, identifying opportunities to improve quality, readability, and consistency.
• Partner with the Art Director to translate creative vision into achievable goals, stepping into hands-on problem-solving when needed to unblock the team or challenge assumptions.

Cross-Disciplinary Collaboration

• Partner closely with Design, Engineering, Production , and Creative Leadership throughout development.
• Advocate for the art team while staying accountable to the needs, priorities, and delivery goals of the overall game.
• Help drive decisions when ambiguity, disagreement, or cross-disciplinary dependencies are blocking progress.

Art Production & Execution

• Define and manage the art portion of the product scope with Production and studio leadership.
• Improve art pipelines, workflows, and tools, resolving inefficiencies that impact quality or execution.
• Oversee external art partners, ensuring outsourced work meets the project's creative, technical, and quality bar.

Management & Team Growth

• Develop leads and individual contributors through clear expectations, actionable feedback, and ongoing performance management.
• Partner with studio leadership on recruiting, organizational structure, and evolving staffing needs across the art organization.

What You'll Bring

• 6+ years of professional experience in game-development art production, with multiple shipped titles as an artist or art leader.
• Significant experience managing, mentoring, and developing artists and art leads, including building and evolving teams and holding people accountable for performance and delivery.
• Strong understanding of the responsibilities, workflows, and dependencies across multiple game-art disciplines.
• Strong product judgment and a demonstrated ability to stay closely engaged with a game throughout development, evaluating art in the context of gameplay, player experience, and production scope.
• Strong cross-functional judgment and communication skills, with the ability to synthesize feedback, navigate disagreement, and balance the needs of the art organization with those of the overall product.
• Experience working with external outsourcing vendors.
• Comfortable operating both strategically and tactically, taking ownership without requiring constant direction.

Nice to Have

• Previous experience leading a multi-disciplinary art organization.
• Strong understanding of Environment, Character, Concept, VFX, Animation, Technical Art , and related art-development pipelines.
• Experience with stylized art and multiplayer games.

The Team

• Reports to the Chief of Staff

How We Work

We believe great games are built by people who care deeply about both the work and one another. Our values guide how we collaborate, solve problems, make decisions, and grow together. They're practical behaviors, not slogans, and they're part of how we hire, give feedback, and support one another every day.

We're looking for teammates who are excited to:

• Stay curious and ask thoughtful questions.
• Adapt when plans change.
• Exercise good judgment rather than chase perfection.
• Care for the success of the whole team, not just their own work.
• Pursue ambitious goals while remaining humble enough to keep learning.
• Commit fully to the shared adventure we're building together.

You'll Thrive Here If...

• You enjoy asking questions before jumping to conclusions.
• You adapt comfortably when priorities evolve.
• You balance ambition with pragmatism.
• You communicate thoughtfully and seek feedback.
• You care about helping your teammates succeed.
• You embrace uncertainty as part of creating something new.

Life at Gardens

Gardens is a fully distributed game studio founded by creators behind titles including Journey, What Remains of Edith Finch, Blaseball, Dustforce, Ashen, Guild Wars 2, Baldur’s Gate 3 , and more.

We're developing our flagship project: a multiplayer fantasy adventure inspired by the friendships, discoveries, and unforgettable stories that emerge when people explore together.

We believe the best ideas come from teams with diverse experiences, perspectives, backgrounds, and ways of thinking. Every Gardener helps shape not only what we build, but how we build it.

Each of us arrives by a different path, bringing unique experiences, perspectives, and ways of seeing the world. That range is part of what makes our games and our studio better than any one of us could build alone.

Gardens Offers:

• 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, and additional benefits
• 401(k) contributions (U.S.) / RRSP + DPSP contributions (Canada)
• Paid parental leave
• A fully distributed remote studio across North American time zones

Benefits and perks listed may vary depending on the nature of your employment with Gardens and the country in which you work.

Physical Requirements:

This is a primarily sedentary, remote role requiring the ability to remain stationary and perform computer-based work for extended periods, including sustained use of monitors, keyboards, mice, and game controllers for a minimum of six hours per day. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable qualified individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions of the role. Gardens is committed to providing reasonable accommodations for qualified individuals with disabilities.

Encouragement: We believe that diverse perspectives make our team stronger and our games better. If you're excited about this role but don't meet every single qualification, we encourage you to apply anyway.

Research consistently shows that talented people, particularly women, people of color, and those from historically underrepresented communities are less likely to apply unless they meet every listed requirement. We care far more about curiosity, growth, and a willingness to learn than checking every box.