Description
Position Overview
We are seeking an exceptional individual to join our talented Technical Consulting Team, reporting to the Technical Consulting Manager.
As a Houdini Technical Consultant (Film / TV) your main role is to develop workflows and create tools with Houdini that enable a broad community of artists to create content procedurally. You are a Houdini advocate, communicating Houdini’s value and features to our customers. As an experienced Film/TV industry professional with strong and well-rounded Houdini skills, you are comfortable with on-the-spot troubleshooting. You are an excellent listener who takes the time to understand what our users hope to achieve and helps them reach their goals.
With strong communication skills, you love to share your knowledge with others and are comfortable presenting in a variety of media, both online and in person. We continue to expand rapidly into game development studios worldwide and would like you to bring your expertise to the thousands of artists who use our technology.
As part of the Technical Consulting Team, you will also work closely with R&D, Sales, Marketing and Education. You can expect occasional travel, sometimes internationally whether, for example, to visit customers or attend professional events.
Key Duties and Responsibilities*
- Learn existing tools and workflows in Houdini
- Communicate with customers both in person and on-line in meetings, webinars, live streams, and the like
- Explore and prototype workflows and share the results with our R&D team
- Identify, develop, test, document and deploy tools and workflows (mostly via SideFX Labs) that solve real production problems for our customer
- Support our Sales Team as needed by providing specialized knowledge to further relationships with both prospective and existing customers
- Report on industry trends and relay customer feedback to internal teams as appropriate. Keep track of your interactions and make notes available to others at SideFX
- Be a champion of our company and represent SideFX to the larger CG community
- Participate as needed in public channels where Houdini tools are discussed
- Occasionally visit studios and provide guidance on applying Houdini to production challenges, answering questions and solving technical problems on site
- Occasionally create demo content to be shown at various trade shows and Houdini related events
- From time to time conduct training for customers
- Collaborate on materials to assist sales team in communicating with customers
- Other duties as assigned
*Adjustments will be made to enable duties & responsibilities to be met working remotely considering the current Covid-19 pandemic situation.
Required Skills and Experience
- Minimum of 3 years experience film or TV industry, or related industry experience
- Minimum of 3 years Houdini experience with demonstrated competency in a production setting
- Fluency in using Houdini for film or tv production
- Practical knowledge of common 3D CG pipelines.
- Must have great interaction skills and the ability to connect with others in person and online
- Strong presentation skills, must be able to create and present content in Houdini fluently
- Must be willing and able to travel occasionally (~25-35 days per year), sometimes internationally
- Ability to work and operate remotely
- Able to articulate an understanding of the business side of development, and the challenges faced by studios and developers in an evolving landscape
- A demonstrated passion for procedural processes and tools, and a drive to share that passion with artists
- Strong written and verbal English communication skills
Bonus Skills
- Realtime experience a plus
- Production experience in lighting, pipeline, and character fx preferred
- Business development, marketing, education or sales experience
- Bachelor’s degree in a field relating to Computer Graphics, Animation, VFX or equivalent experience/education
- Have experience as a Technical Director at a VFX or animation studio
- Experience creating learning materials or teaching production software
A demoreel or URL to online portfolio along with your resume must be provided when applying in order to be considered for this role.
Company Profile
For over thirty years, SideFX has been providing artists with procedural 3D animation, VFX and World Building tools designed to create the highest-quality results.
We are passionate about what our customers do because our roots are in production, both as artists and as pioneering technical innovators. SideFX has been recognized by the Academy of Motion Pictures, Arts and Science several times for our flagship software product Houdini, and our breakthrough procedurally-based technology.
Long used by the world’s top film and TV studios, in recent years Houdini has transformed content creation workflows at hundreds of game studios. Our customers include Framestore, Double Negative, Disney Feature Animation, Weta Digital, Blizzard Entertainment, CD Projekt Red, Rockstar Games, Electronic Arts and many more.
Location
Toronto or Los Angeles office; Other locations will be considered within our company’s possibilities.
SideFX is committed to inclusion and diversity. We encourage all qualified applicants to apply. Accommodation will be provided to candidates with disabilities, upon request.