Pipeline Technical Director

Job Description

Description

Position at Industrial Light & Magic

ILM opened its Sydney studio in the July 2019. The youngest of all of the ILM studios, the Sydney studio leverages the expertise and technological know-how developed over 40 years at Industrial Light & Magic combined with the top artists and technicians in the region. Knowledge and culture flow freely between the company's five studios and the global team shares tools and workflow allowing for seamless collaboration on all shared projects.

As we grow ILM Sydney, we are seeking a Pipeline Technical Director to join the team and be a part of this exciting opportunity.

The Pipeline TD is responsible for developing and maintaining software tools, providing front-line support to artists, and general troubleshooting of the CG pipeline in a fast-paced, feature film visual effects production environment. The primary focus is ensuring artist efficiency. The Pipeline TD receives day-to-day direction and priorities from ILM's show CG Supervisor; reports to R&D supervisor for technical and career guidance.

Primary Responsibilities
• Develop pipeline and asset management tools to meet immediate, show-directed production demands, ensuring facility-wide consistency as directed by show and technical supervisors. Help maintain a wide array of existing workflows and scripts.
• Provide front-line production support across a wide range of disciplines, troubleshoot assets and shots, and help artists with general problem-solving. Monitor email requests, package up problems and redirect to appropriate engineering team.
• Test and validate tools and techniques in production. Work closely with engineering teams in testing, and releasing new and modified software systems.
• Act as an on-call resource for show production staff.
• Collaborate effectively with artists, production supervisors, and technical staff across ILM studios in San Francisco, Vancouver, Singapore, London and Sydney.
• When not crewed to shows, serve on software teams working on projects that improve the efficiency of asset setup, caching, and shot-data handoff between artists across the entire pipeline.
• Take direction from show supervisors to determine day-to-day and hour-to-hour priorities.
• Work primarily on tools of moderate complexity, requiring general understanding of the larger pipeline.
• Provide front-line support and gather information about artist problems and obstacles; resolve complex user errors; connect artists with deeper problems to appropriate technical support.
• Develop broad knowledge of software, systems, and standards and conventions used in production.
• Update documentation for the pipeline and tools to reflect any changes that are made.

Education / Experience
• Bachelor's degree or equivalent in Computer Science or a related technical field.
• Demonstrated experience developing and maintaining tools for use in computer graphics.
• At least 2 years production experience in visual effects for film, commercials or television

Required Skills / Competencies
• Proficiency in Linux
• Strong Python scripting required
• Experience in one or more of Maya, Nuke, Houdini, Mari, Katana, RenderMan or similar.
• Ability to communicate cross-discipline and provide innovative solutions to pipeline issues.
• Detail oriented and strong self-sufficient trouble shooter.
• Good understanding of the entire visual effects process, from shooting to modeling and texturing, animation, rendering and compositing

Preferred Skills / Competencies
• Experience with production database systems
• Experience with C, C++
• Experience with Windows development and applications such as 3ds max a plus.

We are taking a responsible approach to creating environments that allow us to do what we do best - entertain and inform millions around the world. As part of our commitment to health and safety, COVID-19 vaccines are required for current US salaried and non-union hourly employees, as well as all newly hired employees.

Jobcode: Reference SBJ-gkez4q-3-145-64-241-42 in your application.