Pipeline Technical Director

Skydance offers a dynamic, inclusive, and ever-evolving culture where innovative ideas are welcomed, and growth fostered. The partnership between unique creativity and technological advancements are demonstrated within each pillar of the company. At the heart of it all is a commitment to boldly entertaining and relevant storytelling. While all Animation studios look to hire people who are creative and hard-working, Skydance Animation is specifically looking for pioneers who seek to push the limits of what the world’s most collaborative art form can achieve, and to give those pioneers the space and the resources to build a new studio that’s doing something different.

About the role

As a Pipeline Technical Director, you will have deep involvement in designing and developing innovative tools to overcome specific challenges related to the department’s developments 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 larger projects involving complex algorithms.

Responsibilities

• Embed within productions to closely collaborate and support artists and production management.
• Report to the Production Technology Supervisor on the status of technical development projects, tool performance, production operations, and support.
• Develop and maintain required tools following the requirements supplied by production departments and adhering to the Production Engineering Team guides.
• Partner with artists and other engineers to iterate, debug, document, and refine tools and processes for feature film production.
• Act as the first line of support to solve day-to-day problems artists may encounter.
• Work on short-term needs originating from shot challenges.

Requirements

• 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 (a plus).
• 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).
• Familiarity 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, JavaScript, C++ (preferred).
• Experience with other toolkits and systems such as Docker, Git, AWS (preferred).

Pay

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, among other factors. The range indicated is for base salary only and does not reflect the total compensation package, including bonus, benefits, etc.