Software Engineer, Cinematic Tools

About the role

We are seeking a highly experienced and collaborative Software Engineer to help drive the design, implementation, and support of tools for Absurd's cinematic content pipeline. As a Cinematics Pipeline Tools Engineer, you will be passionate about developing tools and systems that enable animators, audio engineers, and cinematic producers to create world-class cinematic content for our games. Your mission will be to ensure a streamlined process for moving content from capture through a variety of production tools and ultimately into our games. You will work across a broad range of technologies and workflows, developing C# tools to automate audio and motion capture collection and processing; C# and Node.js tools to support studio operations such as scheduling and actor database management; tools for ingesting assets into Unreal Engine; C++ and Python tools for moving content to and from external applications such as Premiere, Maya, and Pro Tools; and C++ tools for working with cinematic content directly within Unreal Engine. The role is on-site in Santa Monica, CA, with the office near downtown Santa Monica – near metro and freeways. This is a full-time position.

Responsibilities

• Work directly with leadership from Absurd's production department to identify audio and motion capture toolchain requirements, and then build, test, and support those tools.
• Support and guide work done by creative staff who use agentic coding as part of their regular workflows.
• Interface with animators, audio engineers, cinematic producers to design, implement, and support tools for ingesting, authoring, and exporting cinematic content.
• Participate in technical planning, task estimation, and milestone reviews.
• Work directly with studio production staff to provide troubleshooting and support during production shoots.

Qualifications

• 5+ years of professional game development experience with a focus on systems for cinematic content capture, management, and authoring
• 2+ years of professional experience working in Unreal Engine, ideally with experience working with Unreal Sequencer, animation systems, and audio systems
• 1+ year professional experience developing desktop applications in C# or similar language
• Ability and desire to thrive in a fast-paced production environment
• Superb written and verbal communication skills. You will be working with a wide range of studio staff with very different technical skillsets
• Comfortable using AI coding agents and helping non-engineers use them
• Comfortable working in both PC and Mac environments
• Shipped at least one AAA title in an engineering role
• A customer-centric mindset with excellent problem-solving and technical troubleshooting skills
• Thirst to learn, experiment, and grow in a rapidly evolving technical environment

Skills

• Hands-on experience developing support tooling for Wwise, ProTools, Premiere, Da Vinci Resolve, and/or Maya
• Experience working with motion capture systems like Captury and Xsens
• Experience working with narrative authoring systems like Articy
• Experience working with automation pipelines like Horde, TeamCity, or Jenkins

Benefits

• Vacation time
• Sick time
• Company holidays
• Parental leave
• Medical/dental/vision insurance
• Life insurance
• Disability insurance
• 401(k) matching to regular full-time employees
• Potential bonus and equity eligibility

Pay

The base pay range for this position is $130,000 to $155,000 per year. Actual compensation is based on market location and may vary depending on job-related