Senior Software Engineer, USD

Overview

Our Software R&D team is responsible for developing Pixar’s in-house and open-source software. Working with both artists and engineers, we build innovative filmmaking tools that enable our film production and continuously extend artistic reach. Universal Scene Description (USD) is Pixar’s open-source, high-performance, extensible software framework for collaboratively constructing and exchanging large-scale 3D scenes. We are looking for a Senior Software Engineer to join the team that develops and maintains USD.

You will collaborate with us in a multi-functional team to extend the feature set and improve the performance of this important piece of our filmmaking pipeline. Are you enthusiastic about software architecture and API design? Do you love writing scalable and high-quality C++ code? If so, we would love to have you on the team!

• Contribute to Universal Scene Description (USD), an open-source software framework for asset interchange and collaborative editing that forms the backbone of Pixar’s filmmaking pipeline, and is used widely across various industries

• Further integrate USD into Pixar’s custom toolset of 3D content creation applications, and help evolve its growing feature set while improving performance and scalability

• Take ownership of challenging problems that arise from evolving the architecture of software that is heavily exercised in an active production environment

• Collaborate with artists and other engineers to provide innovative technical solutions that extend our artistic and engineering reach

• Join forces with external partners as USD continues to redefine pipelines across industries, bringing new contributors and collaborators to the table

• Start with a strong understanding of C++ that you continually expand upon. Have an understanding of modern C++ and experience with the STL

• Be ready to navigate a large code base with many active contributors

• Address problems creatively and demonstrate attention to detail

• Take pride and passion in building software architecture that minimizes complexity, scales well, and remains malleable to an ever evolving filmmaking pipeline

• Hold yourself to a high bar when it comes to engineering methodologies, like writing maintainable code, providing good documentation and embracing automated testing

• Build software holistically:
  From planning and proposal to implementation, testing, optimization and deployment

• Have the ability to listen well, and communicate clearly

• Thrive in a collaborative and diverse environment where you exchange knowledge with accomplished technicians and draw inspiration from world-class artists

• Four or more years of professional experience, and a degree in Computer Science (or equivalent education)

The hiring range for this position in Emeryville is $ to $ per year. The base pay actually offered will take into account internal equity and also may vary depending on the candidate’s geographic region, job-related knowledge, skills, and experience among other factors.