Description
The Production Engineer I is responsible for developing and maintaining
the VFX production’s renderfarm queuing software, job submission tools,
reporting and analytics systems, and ensuring it is running smoothly and
efficiently. The Production Engineer I will be active in both
development projects as well as supporting the Render Wrangling Team,
artists and supervisors.
- Integrating in-house tools and 3rd party applications into the queuing system
- Extend the feature set of the queuing system through the development of new features in the system’s core
- Developing tools for artists and production to monitor the farm, gather metrics and generate reports
- Provide technical insight and be able to answer questions about the farm's behavior
- Responsible for the development of workflow and tools, under the guidance of a project lead
- Creates new tools and workflows
- Receives general instruction on work and new assignments
- Advises/assists other engineers with maintenance and bug fixing of existing tools
- Serves as knowledge resource for workflow and tools used in production at ILM
- Updates and features additions to existing tools
- Provide support to local productions to keep the renderfarm running smoothly
- Troubleshoot renderfarm issues
- Fix bugs and tune workflow tools
- Install and configure software
- Configure the renderfarm to meet shows’ needs
- Develop per-show tool customizations as determined by show supervisors
- Provide training and assistance to artists on toolsets and workflows
- Participates in discussions surrounding future workflow and tool development
- Collaborates with artists and productions to develop efficient workflows and supporting tools
- Participate in the activities of the globally distributed production engineering team, including:
- development and support activities
- regular status and planning meetings as time zones permit
- adhere to development best practices and standards defined by Production Engineering Supervisor
Requirements
Education / Experience:
• Bachelor’s degree in Computing Science or Graphics discipline, or equivalent professional experience
• 3-6 years of experience in the visual effects or computer animation industries
Required Skills / Competencies:
•
A positive, “can-do” attitude with balance: must not be afraid to ask
for help when getting outside experience base or comfort zone
• A clear and concise communicator: ability to keep end users informed of progress and managers informed of requests
• An effective listener: able to engage with and understand artists to discover what their requirements are
•
An effective time manager: must be able to prioritize a multitude of
requests and not be afraid to ask for help if the path isn’t clear
• Passionate about delivering rigorous follow-through on assigned tasks
•
An agile, flexible and quick thinker: this is an energetic, dynamic
environment requiring an ability to adapt to rapidly changing
requirements
• A creative thinker and innovator: able to devise and employ ingenious solutions to difficult problems
Technical Skills:
• In-depth knowledge of python programming and the Linux environment
• Experience working with revision control systems and defined coding standards
• Experience developing tools and/or plugins within industry software packages such as Maya, Nuke, Houdini or Katana
Preferred Skills / Competencies:
• Experience developing with C++ and Python
• Experience with Tractor, Qube, Deadline, Alfred or another renderfarm queuing system
• Experience with database technologies such as MySQL, PostgreSQL, MongoDB or Redis
• Experience writing RESTful APIs
• Experience developing against and/or deploying Amazon Web Services
• Knowledge of the standard python packaging and installation tool-chain
• VFX, Feature Animation or Episodic production experience
• Experience with Maya, Katana and Nuke
• Experience with Renderman, vray or Arnold
• Experience developing on Windows