Software Engineer -Lighting & Materials

At Walt Disney Animation Studios we have a deep commitment to the philosophy that creativity inspires technology, and technology inspires creativity. Engineers in our Production Technology department are charged with developing and implementing new algorithms to solve unique and challenging problems for all of our animated content. We do this working alongside a user base that shares a collaborative environment with us and uses the code we develop daily.

We are looking for a Software Engineer to join our Production Technology team and elevate and support our animation pipeline focusing on our tools to author surface materials and lights, as well as our final frame rendering pipeline. Critical to this role’s success is a passion for enhancing the way users experience content creation software.

In this role, you will partner with artists, technical directors, cross-team software engineers, and product designers. Specific responsibilities include visual design, development, and deployment of graphical user interfaces, tool development within multiple content creation packages, and support of our legacy software tools and libraries. This engineer will contribute to projects throughout their full lifecycle, from concept to launch and refinement, enabling innovative workflows inspired by our long-term vision for our animation pipeline.

Projects Include

• Designing, prototyping, implementing and iterating on user interfaces for material and light authoring

• Implementation of plugins for Maya and our proprietary DCCs for our Look Development artists

• Design & implementation of new Houdini nodes, HDA’s, and functionality for our Lighting pipeline within Houdini, including UI design and interaction using Houdini’s available APIs

• Support and enhancement for our rendering pipeline that converts our shot and asset data into renderable representations for our proprietary final frame renderer

• Building new APIs to allow for artist-facing and data management tools to more readily create, edit, and access shot content

• Supporting our productions by identifying and solving technical obstacles encountered by our artists

What does it mean to be a developer at Walt Disney Animation Studios?

• Our engineers get the opportunity to work on the full stack of our tools, from developing the underlying algorithms through building intuitive artist-friendly interfaces

• Work hand in hand with artists and a team of cross-site developers to make the tools we need for the incredibly complex characters/environments featured in our content

• Develop on top of a highly performant, extendable in-house application framework

• Develop new artist-centric interaction models using the latest hardware and technologies

You will succeed in this role if you have:

• A keen eye for designing efficient and intuitive user interfaces

• The ability to quickly produce clear, testable code

• Understanding of the importance of performant solutions for user interaction

• Excellent problem solving, troubleshooting and debugging skills

• Ability to collaborate with team members across different disciplines including directly interfacing with stakeholders to understand requirements

• Exemplary communication, teamwork and problem-solving skills, balancing the timeliness of solutions with their sustainability

• Able to prioritize competing demands based on business value

Key Qualifications:

• 3+ years designing and developing complex user facing software, ideally in a studio environment or equivalent experience

• Proficiency in C++, ideally C++11/14

• Experience with scripting languages including Python

• Experience designing and building clean interfaces with Qt or other UI toolkit

Bonus Qualifications:

• Understanding of computer graphics foundational concepts, and algorithms

• Knowledge of animation, graphics techniques and algorithms

• Experience with Autodesk Maya and/or SideFX Houdini

• Masters in Computer Science

Required Education

• BS in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Mathematics, Electrical Engineering or related field or equivalent experience.

The hiring range for this position in California is $112,600-$151,000 per year based on a 40 hour work week. The amount of hours scheduled per week may vary based on business needs. The base pay actually offered will take into account internal equity and also may vary depending on the candidate’s geographic region, job-related knowledge, skills, and experience among other factors. A bonus and/or long-term incentive units may be provided as part of the compensation package, in addition to the full range of medical, financial, and/or other benefits, dependent on the level and position offered.