Pipeline Technical Director

Pipeline Technical Director

As a Pipeline Technical Director, you will have a deep involvement in designing and developing innovative tools to overcome specific challenges related to the department’s development for our next animated feature film. This effort seeks to implement solutions that off‑the‑shelf software would not provide while maximizing productivity and meeting the high quality standard set by the company. The scope of the developments may range from a simple python script to a larger development involving complex algorithms.

• TDs are embedded within the productions to closely collaborate and support the artists and production management.
• Reports to the Production Technology Supervisor on the status of technical development projects, tool performance, production operations and support.
• Develop and maintain the required tools following the requirements supplied by the production departments and following the Production Engineering Team guides.
• Partner with Artists and other Engineers to iterate, debug, document, and refine tools and processes for feature film production.
• Acts as the first line of support to solve day‑to‑day problems artists may encounter.
• Work on short‑term needs, originated by shot challenges.

• Undergraduate degree in Computer Science, Computer Graphics, or comparable discipline and/or technical and creative knowledge gained through equivalent experience.
• 3+ years of experience; preferably within computer animation, visual effects, or the game industry.
• Experience supporting animation pre‑production departments such as Story, Editorial, and Previs.
• Expert in Python.
• Experience programming with one or more of the following software:
  Maya, Houdini, and Nuke.
• Experience with Post and Preproduction workflows.
• Experience with one or more non‑linear editing suites: e.g. Avid Media Composer, Premiere, Resolve.
• Familiar with common media encodings and transcoding software: e.g. ffmpeg.
• Experience in Linux, Mac and Windows operating systems.
• Experience working with a source version control system (git).
• Experience with agile development and scrum methodology.
• User interaction design with a working knowledge of standard UI toolkits (e.g. Qt/PySide).
• Experience with pipeline and plugin development in third‑party DCC tools (preferred).
• Experience with software development languages such as Java, Java script, C++ (preferred).
• Experience with other toolkits and systems such as Docker, Git, AWS (preferred).

The compensation range for this non‑exempt position in Los Angeles, CA is $53.00‑62.50/hour. The rate offered may vary based on the candidate’s location, qualifications, experience and relevant expertise. The range indicated is for base salary only and does not reflect the total compensation package, including bonus, benefits, etc.