Houdini Pipeline TD FX & CFX

Overview

Brazen Animation is looking for a Houdini Technical Director with experience in CG production and has a deep desire to maintain and evolve an innovative and efficient pipeline.  Technical Directors work closely with the Pipeline Supervisor to develop new tools and processes as well as support existing tools and processes. Candidates may have a technical artist background and transitioned beyond just aesthetics and more into tools and software development.  We are a highly collaborative studio that is constantly evolving the way we work and coming up with new tools to help push what we can achieve.

Responsibilities

• Develop and maintain infrastructure tools and workflows to enable the studio to meet business and production goals. 
• Support production pipeline requests by troubleshooting assets and shots and general problem-solving for artists and production management.
• Develop and maintain pipeline tools and workflows to enable artist efficiency and meet production demands. 
• Support the studio’s infrastructure requests on storage, network, licensing, hardware/software deployment and render farm management.
• Deploy and manage software and hardware needs for production and business.
• Document workflow, processes and tools that enable technical staff and artists to keep up-to-date and share knowledge. 
• Work in conjunction with the department Supervisor to determine long term strategies and standards for the studio.
• Hair, fur, cloth and muscle setups & simulations for our characters (Houdini)
• Traditional FX work such as natural effects and vegetation setups & simulations (Houdini)
• Additional tasks include creating tools and HDA:s & scripts to improve quality and efficiency for the CFX & FX pipeline.

Skills & Expertise

• Competency in developing software and writing clean code.
• Excellent knowledge of Houdini.
• Strong knowledge of FX & CFX workflows
• Must be able to work independently as well as a great team player.
• Ability to think outside the box and re-engineer old processes.
• Strong collaborator and communicator 
• Service based communication skills 

Required Qualifications

• Bachelor’s or foreign equivalent degree in Computational Media, Computing Science or related field
• 2+ years of experience in the job offered or related production technology position. 
• Strong python background, c++ and other programming languages
• Ability to learn new programming languages a must
• Strong understanding of the CG pipeline
• Strong desire to build tools for artists, solve problems, and innovate
• Ability to support artists in all disciplines
• Enjoys being challenged and can handle fast-paced production needs
• Understands software development principles, unit testing, data structures and agile workflows
• Basic understanding of computer systems, linux, windows, sys admin
• Ability to pivot with ease
• Enjoys working in a team environment