Job Description
Position Summary
We seek Engineers to join our Production Tools Team and help develop tools and services to support Editorial, 2D media, Dailies and Review pipelines for visual effects, feature animation, and real-time content production.
Who We Are:
Industrial Light & Magic, founded in 1975 by George Lucas, has created some of the most iconic moments in motion picture history. From Star Wars to Jurassic Park, Pirates of the Caribbean, Transformers, The Avengers, theme park rides and interactive experiences, ILM continues to expand the possibilities of what visual entertainment can be.
ILM’s Core Pipeline Department develops the ground-breaking technology that empowers our artists to create dazzling visuals. ILM’s innovations have won 34 Scientific and Technical Academy Awards. Today, we are 70+ visually-minded software engineers, working side-by-side with over a thousand digital artists in a fast-paced, intensely collaborative, creative film production environment, across studios in San Francisco, Vancouver, London, Sydney, and Mumbai.
At ILM, a good idea is a good idea, regardless of where it comes from! Do you thrive in a creative environment? Do you enjoy sharing knowledge and learning from others? If you love art, technology, and movies, then this might be the role you’re looking for.
Responsibilities include:
Working with engineers across all of ILM’s studios, splitting time between long-term software development projects and day-to-day production support, consultation, and problem-solving.
Developing software using modern practices in RESTful APIs, frameworks like via FastAPI, working in web stacks implemented with TypeScript and React, administering databases in SQL or PostgreSQL, leveraging message queues like RabbitMQ and Kafka, and leveraging deployment tools such as Docker, Kubernetes, and Ansible.
Working in a collaborative, distributed team of full-time software engineers and media experts in researching, developing, and supporting ILM’s editorial, production tracking, media transformation, dailies and review tools that scale to high-volume visual effects and animation production.
Working directly with highly specialised and talented artists in active film and TV production in ILM’s global studios.
Analysing and optimising the media pipelines in active production. Advising creative leadership on media pipeline approach and strategy.
Liaising with other Core Pipeline teams to incorporate shared services, partnering with other Walt Disney Studios like Pixar and Walt Disney Animation Studios as well as other industry groups to create the best work possible at ILM.
We welcome engineers with a passion for developing production tracking solutions!
What to bring:
Proficiency in Python and the Linux environment.
Demonstrable strong background and proven experience with professional software development and/or VFX production.
An in-depth knowledge and expertise that gives you the ability to solve complex problems with minimal guidance.
To act as a resource for colleagues.
Appreciation of software development practices: object-oriented design, test-focused development, source code management, build and release processes.
An intuitive understanding of the demands of a fast-paced, creative industry.
Communication: an ability to express yourself concisely, a willingness to speak up, and a conviction to keep everyone informed of progress and problems.
Empathy: an ability to listen intently and recognise artists’ needs.
Creativity: an insightful and analytical thinker, and a creative problem solver.
Experience on system design; utilising scalable architectures and working with a large, complex, mature, and dynamic codebase.
Proficiency with several relational or NoSQL technologies such as MySQL, PostgreSQL, MongoDB, Redis, Cassandra and Elasticsearch.
Nice to have: Familiarity with RV, Nuke, AVID and/or similar 2D media tools; knowledge of open standards such as OpenColorIO, OpenImageIO, OpenTimelineIO and ffmpeg; experience with containerisation, continuous integration, and automated deployment.
Education / Experience:
BS and/or advanced degree in computer science or related field, or equivalentlevel of experience.
This role is Hybrid, which means the employee will be required to work a minimum of 2 days on-site per week at a Company designated location, and occasionally from home.
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