Lead Software Developer – Creature

Description

The Creature group at DNEG creates and maintains a suite of tools and software to facilitate complex Creature FX work in the production of award-winning Visual Effects and Feature Animation work. As a Lead Software Developer in this group, you will guide a highly engaged and talented team implementing algorithms to generate, manipulate and render hair, fur and feathers. Your primary DCC platform will be Autodesk Maya, with the majority of code written in C++.

You will also work to improve the performance and capabilities of our in-house grooming tool that is used in the creation of realistic creatures, ranging from the natural, such as wild boar and polar bears; the mystical, such as thunderbirds and goblins and the futuristic, such as Oscar-winning Ex Machina’s Ava.

Our Developers are highly technical and methodical in their approach to solving complex problems. You will:

• Supervise your team of Software Developers, who will look to you as a mentor to develop their skills and as a coach to guide them through the software development life cycle
• Allocate your team’s workload and manage the expectations of key stakeholders
• Investigate solutions and techniques to improve our in-house and off-the-shelf creature FX tools and software packages
• Ensure that bug reports and support requests are dealt with swiftly and efficiently
• Be a good communicator – you will be producing technical documentation, communicating development timeframes and presenting your ideas to stakeholders and senior developers in your team
• Be a primary point of contact for our artists to ensure they are supported by the work your team produces. Your ability to communicate accurately and succinctly with technical developers and non-technical artists will help you thrive in this role

This is a fantastic opportunity for someone with excellent technical leadership skills to join DNEG’s Production Technology department and lead a team of talented Tool Developers. You will be responsible for supporting and driving improvement of the tools which are used by artists throughout the facility on the exceptional VFX and Feature Animation work ranging from blockbuster epics to television dramas.

Must have:

• Degree in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, or relevant professional experience
• Extensive programming experience in C++
• Practical experience or knowledge of Python programming
• Experience with APIs for relevant applications such as Maya and Houdini

Nice to have:

• Experience leading a team
• Knowledge of hair, fur and groom-related algorithms and techniques
• Experience writing multithreaded algorithms
• Practical knowledge of libraries such as Qt, OpenGL, Boost, OpenSubdiv, BLAS, Eigen, OpenCL or CUDA

A note on Equal Opportunities

We would not be able to produce award-winning work without our Production Technology department, which is committed to nurturing an inclusive, diverse and exciting workplace. Our teams have a variety of backgrounds and originate from a number of different countries, working across the globe at the forefront of technology in the industry.