Studio: Zoic Studios
Job Opening: FX Pipeline Technical Director
Location: Remote
Type: Contract
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 for 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.
Qualifications & Skills:
- 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 additional DCCs such as Maya, Katana, Terragen, and/or Nuke, is a plus.
- Experience with SCM tools such as Git and GitLab.
- Experience with Linux preferred.
