Fx Pipeline Technical Director

Summary

Join Zoic Studios, an artist-owned VFX company, as their FX Pipeline Technical Director (TD)! This role offers the option to work remotely from British Columbia or in our Vancouver studio. You will collaborate with artists and engineers to design, develop, and support custom tools and scripts for our USD-backed, Houdini-based FX pipeline. Responsibilities include extending Houdini's capabilities, integrating Houdini into our asset management system, and supporting users. This exciting opportunity involves working on a stop-motion animated feature project and offers a chance to showcase your skills in a collaborative environment. The position requires extensive experience in VFX pipeline development and Houdini.

Requirements

• 4+ years’ experience developing custom tools and workflows relevant to FX within an animation or VFX studio environment
• Experience developing with Python including familiarity with best practices, the Python core library, and industry standard libraries such as PySide and pytest, as well as Houdini’s domain specific languages - Vex and Hscript
• Experience integrating Houdini into a production pipeline, leveraging its various API
• Experience designing and authoring Houdini Digital Assets
• Experience with USD and its various APIs, both stand alone and in Solaris
• Experience with one or more production grade renderers, such as Renderman
• Experience with SCM tools such as Git and GitLab

Responsibilities

• Extend the capabilities of Houdini through custom scripts, digital assets, and plugins, collaborating with production and facility leadership to target high value projects and addressing the needs of FX artists, as well as various other departments to integrate Houdini into respective workflows
• Collaborate with the technology team to integrate Houdini-authored products into the asset management system
• Work with non-technical end users to help define requirements for novel tools and develop prototypes for systems that solve production problems
• Collaborate with other pipeline TDs and engineers to evolve the core pipeline by incorporating technological advances and addressing the evolving requirements of a growing facility
• Assist in the integration of Houdini into the production pipeline as identified by production and technology leadership
• Follow the processes and procedures of the software development life cycle, build and release system, and documentation and testing standards used in Technology
• Provide support of existing tools via bug fixes and version updates
• Support users on Linux with FX and Houdini related inquiries
• Support applications through documentation, training, and handling questions

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience with additional DCCs such as Maya, Katana, Terragen, and/or Nuke, a plus
• Experience with Linux preferred

Benefits

Option to work from home OR work from our Vancouver studio