Animation Engineer Jobs in California (NOW HIRING)

DreamWorks Animation is looking for more adventurous dreamers who shoot for the moon. We tell stories about the journeys our unconventional heroes take to make dreams come true. As a growth-minded studio, we pride ourselves on being one of the world's leading producers of high-quality, award-winning, animated films and series, reaching consumers around the globe. We push to feel more, laugh more, and build immersive new worlds.

DreamWorks creates a diverse array of original content in a variety of formats, delivering compelling stories with unique characters. We place tremendous value on the experiences our talent brings to the table from their own non-traditional paths to success. We believe in frequent communication and that transparency and trust yield the best work. We are a community of artists, technologists, innovators, and creators, who are passionate about animation and also happen to love eating lunch together. 

If you are part of the fandom and believe teamwork makes the dream work, join us in #livingthedream and #doingyourdreamwork!

DreamWorks Animation is looking for a passionate senior graphics software engineer to join our rendering team in building our cutting-edge path tracer MoonRay, as seen in all of our movies from How To Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World, Trolls: World Tour, The Wild Robot, award-winning shorts, themed entertainment and more.   We work closely with artists and our focus is to deliver breathtaking images while being massively scalable across single or multiple machines.  We’ve been creating movie magic for over 30 years and we’d love to have you join us.  We have a great, award-winning team and we are looking for an experienced engineer to join us in pushing rendering boundaries. Our work is used directly in the making of our movies, and is always available to the broader VFX and graphics industries and world as a contributed project in the Academy Software Foundation.  Check it out!  https://openmoonray.org

“What would you say you do here?”

• Research and develop the tools and services for the studio’s rendering needs for features and shorts, themed entertainment, VFX, and future needs.
•  Focus on advanced graphics research and development
• Adapting physically-based path tracing techniques to achieve stylized looks
• Help build and advance our state of the art rendering technology, MoonRay.    
• Optimize code and algorithms for single (and multi-) machine efficiency and scalability.
• Work with artists to improve the technology in the creation of our movies and advanced productions

“What do I need to have in order to do this job?”

• 8+ years of industry or related experience in a graphics/rendering engineering role
• 3+ years experience in Monte Carlo raytracing and global illumination   
•  Understanding of parallel programming models  
• Bachelor’s Degree in Computer Science
• Familiarity with current MCRT rendering research    
• Experience in core C/C++ software development in rendering, lighting or other graphics-related tools

“What can I offer?”

• Enthusiasm to work on visual problems as well as hard systems, software design and parallel programming problems related to rendering
• Experience in GPU and CPU rendering 
• Experience in VFX/animation pipeline
• Experience in problem-solving and balancing quick turnaround with long-term quality
• Experience in open-source software development
• Excellent communication skills and an aptitude for working in small teams
• Ability to deliver robust, scalable, maintainable code
• Familiarity with SIMD/SPMD vectorization
• Familiarity with applied machine-learning techniques in graphics

Fully Remote: This position has been designated as fully remote, meaning that the position is expected to contribute from a non-DreamWorks worksite, most commonly an employee’s residence.

This position is eligible for company sponsored benefits, including medical, dental and vision insurance, 401(k), paid leave, tuition reimbursement, and a variety of other discounts and perks. Learn more about the benefits offered by NBCUniversal by visiting the Benefits page of the Careers website.

Salary Range $155,000 - $190,000

As part of our selection process, external candidates may be required to attend an in-person interview with an NBCUniversal employee at one of our locations prior to a hiring decision. NBCUniversal's policy is to provide equal employment opportunities to all applicants and employees without regard to race, color, religion, creed, gender, gender identity or expression, age, national origin or ancestry, citizenship, disability, sexual orientation, marital status, pregnancy, veteran status, membership in the uniformed services, genetic information, or any other basis protected by applicable law. 

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