As a member of the RenderMan team, you’ll be part of a team of people contributing to the development and support of Pixar’s industry-leading rendering software. A Studio Support Engineer has the specific goal of providing front-line support for users of RenderMan at Pixar. In that role, you’ll directly help Pixar’s artists, making it possible for them to achieve new looks and deliver outstanding content by providing fixes, features, and information about how to get the most out of RenderMan. The feedback you collect will directly help improve the RenderMan product for all users.
RESPONSIBILITIES:
- Investigating, triaging, and resolving RenderMan issues reported by Pixar's artistic or technical teams
- Investigating, describing, and estimating work for feature requests from movies in production
- Communicating with production and technical teams within the studio about their needs, and answering questions about how RenderMan works
- Implementing and testing fixes and new features in RenderMan for studio use, and collaborating with other engineers to improve the product
- Organizing and releasing new internal builds of RenderMan
- Providing periodic presentations on new or changed RenderMan features
- Training users in system operation and application use
- Producing documentation for use either in training sessions or for standalone use
QUALIFICATIONS:
- Experience writing software in high-level programming languages like C++ or Python
- An understanding of physically-based rendering and experience working with renderers
- Extensive analytic, debugging, and problem-solving skills
- Experience working in a Linux environment
- Bachelor's Degree in computer science or equivalent experience
PREFERRED SKILLS:
- Attention to detail, curiosity, and a desire to learn
- A customer-centric mentality and a collaborative approach to solving problems
- Strong organizational skills with the ability to prioritize and multitask
- Ability to work well independently and prioritize tasks for the greatest impact
- Ability to communicate highly technical information to a variety of people, in both verbal and written forms
- Experience working with shading languages (such as OSL) is a plus
- Experience with popular modeling and animation packages such as Blender, Maya, Houdini, or Katana is a plus
- Experience working in an animation or VFX studio is a plus