Job Description

About The Company And The Team

At Microsoft, we have bold ambitions: Empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more. To accomplish this, the Mixed Reality Developer Experience Team is looking for divergent thinkers and makers who explore and learn by making, obsess over every degree, pixel, word, and sound wave, and bring their curiosity and passion to re-imaging the relationship between people and technology. In 2015, we launched HoloLens, the world’s first spatial computing device and platform, with the mission of empowering people to transform their world. In 2021, we continue that journey with the core belief that mixed reality can bring people closer and help them go further.

About The Role

Microsoft’s Mixed Reality Developer Experience Team (DXT) is looking for a customer-focused 3D Technical Artist with creative and technical expertise in 3D design, prototyping, and coding, and the curiosity, creativity, empathy, and engineering passion to define the spatial future of computing. This role requires expertise with the Unity Engine, and various 3D content-creation and design tools.

As a Technical Artist, you will be focused on 3D asset creation and bringing our core product experience to life through prototypes, iteration, validation, final production, and post-production documentation, tutorials, and evangelism. Using the Mixed Reality Toolkit (MRTK) and Microsoft Mesh, you will work with our interdisciplinary team to turn customer insights into transformative experiences and the design patterns that unify Microsoft’s mixed-reality software, hardware, and services. You’ll explore and demonstrate the path ahead for Microsoft’s MR products with both quick demos and highly refined MR experiences.

In this role, you will combine the asset creation expertise of a 3D game artist with the experience focus of an interaction designer, and the rapid approach of a prototyper. You will bring your unique perspective to our human-centered design process, as we seek new ways for technology and our platform to empower people and groups around the world. You’ll lead by making in our highly collaborative, cross-disciplinary environment, where we test early, test often, and tirelessly push for the best. You’ll use your creative and technical expertise to bridge design and engineering, and utilize your hands-on skills to develop the design intent through prototyping and iterative refinement, all the way from concept to completion.

There is no bigger opportunity than defining the foundation of mixed reality computing, communication, and creativity with our team, and we cannot wait to see what you will bring!

Responsibilities

• Provide 3D art, technical-art expertise, and UX design to refine and extend MRTK, and help make it an industry-leading solution for MR designers and developers. This spans the design of specific components, art assets, sample apps, tutorials, and documentation.
• Design, and iterate front-end UIX features to grow other MR design tools like Microsoft Maquette and Figma Toolkit
• Contribute to the latest MR design-language as it evolves, applying it to developer-focused mixed-reality deliverables
• Across our portfolio, holistically consider product direction and development with the team to facilitate improved user behavior, user goals, and business potential
• Actively bridge design and engineering, advising design teams on engineering constraints and advising engineering teams on design intent and capturing the desired feel of an experience; seek inclusive and divergent feedback from peers and leads to iteratively improve product experience.
• Design and express spatial UX & interaction solutions to novel MR design challenges
• Produce designs that communicate optimal user experiences; deliverables may include storyboards, flows, wireframes, prototypes, and 2D-3D art
• Contribute to documentation and tutorials to assist the MR app designer-developer eco-system
• Work closely and constructively with engineers to hone design solutions, iterate, and ship regular improvements to products in market
• Advocate for your design solutions by putting them incontextof business and customer goals
  
  

Qualifications

• A design portfolio that demonstrates relevant 3D art and technical art, with expertise in Unity and 3D content-creation tools, shaders, rigs, textures, and animations
• 5+ years of industry-specific experience in product design
• Bachelor's Degree in Design (or related field) or equivalent professional experience
• Extensive experience with asset optimization and art production pipelines
• A proven track record of customer-focused interaction design, information architecture, 2D and 3D layout, and visual design skills and deliverables within the AR/VR domain
• Experience with collaborating with user research and engineering to create interactive prototypes that explore innovative design concepts, act as reference for customer research, and bring ideas from pre-production to production
• The ability to quickly turn around spatial UX designs and mockups in an iterative environment
• The ability to scope and estimate efforts accurately and prioritize tasks and goals independently
• Proficiencyina variety of art and design tools such as the Adobe Creative Suite, Sketch, Framer, Maya, 3DSMax, etc.
• Familiarity with virtual reality creation tools such as Microsoft Maquette, Oculus Medium, Google Tilt Brush, Tvori, etc.
• Openness to collaborate with engineers in the Unity Game Engine to directly hone designs within the product itself.
• Track-record of evangelism and helping others (published guidance/documentation, social-media, hackathons, presentations)
• Familiarity with Unreal and Web/Familiar frameworks is not required, but nice-to-have
  
  

Microsoft is an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to age, ancestry, color, family or medical care leave, gender identity or expression, genetic information, marital status, medical condition, national origin, physical or mental disability, political affiliation, protected veteran status, race, religion, sex (including pregnancy), sexual orientation, or any other characteristic protected by applicable laws, regulations and ordinances. We also consider qualified applicants regardless of criminal histories, consistent with legal requirements. If you need assistance and/or a reasonable accommodation due to a disability during the application or the recruiting process, please send a request via the Accommodation request form.

Benefits/perks listed below may vary depending on the nature of your employment with Microsoft and the country where you work.