Freelance Creative Technologist

Overview

3rd Ave is looking for a Freelance Creative Technologist to support immersive experiential builds, themed environments, and permanent digital installations.

We build real world spaces where lighting, media, motion, AI, and fabrication all have to work together seamlessly. This role sits at the intersection of software, hardware, and scenic.

You’ll help design, prototype, integrate, and deploy interactive systems that trigger lighting, video playback, sound, AI-driven content, and environmental effects inside fabricated environments.

• Building trigger-based interactive systems (touch, sensors, custom inputs)
• Integrating AI-driven experiences into physical spaces
• Configuring LED walls (processors, scaling, mapping, aspect ratios)
• Programming LED strip lighting (pixel mapping, sequencing, power planning)
• Deploying media playback systems (Bright Sign or similar)
• Switching content dynamically across multiple displays
• Coordinating lighting, audio, motion, and AI outputs into synchronized sequences
• Collaborating directly with fabricators, electricians, and producers
• Supporting install and on-site debugging

• Touch Designer or similar real time platforms
• NodeJS and/or Python
• React or interactive frontend frameworks
• OpenGL / shaders
• REST or Graph
  
  QL APIs
• Unity or Unreal
• Microcontrollers (Arduino, Raspberry Pi, ESP
  32)
• DMX / Art-Net systems
• Reading and updating physical and logical system diagrams
• Git, command line tools, SSH

• You understand the difference between a prototype and a show‑ready install
• You design for reliability in public-facing environments
• You think in systems, not isolated components
• You stay calm during integration and launch
• You communicate clearly across creative and technical teams

This is freelance / project-based. LA preferred. On‑site presence required during key integration phases.

If you enjoy building interactive environments that actually respond, adapt, and work in the real world, let’s talk.