Associate Director, Creative Technology

Socket.dev; San Francisco (CA); Hybrid; USD 150,000 - 165,000; Full time

Job summary

California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco seeks an Associate Director, Creative Technology to lead the Experience Studio’s Creative Technology function. You will shape the technical and creative vision for immersive exhibits, planetarium experiences, and new visitor technologies, guiding a multidisciplinary team and collaborating with science experts.

The role emphasizes innovation, real-time media, and physical computing to deliver transformative, accessible visitor experiences while

Qualifications

• Professional Experience & Leadership: 10+ years in creative technology and immersive media, including 3–5 years in technical leadership.
• Education: Bachelor’s degree in a relevant technical or design field; advanced degree preferred.
• Skills & Abilities: Innovation, strategic leadership, lifecycle management, collaboration across disciplines, real-time development tools and AV/projection integration.

Responsibilities

• Lead the Creative Technology function within the Experience Studio, setting vision, priorities, and cross‑department collaboration for public-facing technology.
• Develop and maintain a multi-year technology roadmap that integrates new experiences with system lifecycles and budget planning.
• Oversee public experiences technology portfolio, including projection, visualization, immersive media, sensors, and supporting infrastructure, ensuring reliable operation.
• Manage and develop a multidisciplinary team of technologists, engineers, and planetarium engineers; foster experimentation and continuous learning.
• Engage with subject matter experts to develop novel experience technologies that connect visitors with science.

Skills

Creative technology

Immersive media

Technical leadership

Public experiences

Museum exhibitions

Planetariums

Real-time media

Interactive systems

Programming

Education

Bachelor’s degree in a relevant technical or design field

Tools

Unity

Unreal

TouchDesigner

Python

C++

JavaScript

Job description

About the California Academy of Sciences

Founded in 1853, the California Academy of Sciences is a globally renowned, AZA-accredited non-profit scientific and cultural institution located in the heart of San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park. Home to a world-class planetarium, aquarium, rainforest, research institute, and natural history museum—all under one living roof—our mission is to regenerate the natural world through science, learning, and collaboration.

Our living collection reflects Earth’s vast biodiversity, consisting of nearly 60,000 animals representing over 800 species. Our research collections are the largest west of the Mississippi, spanning nearly 46 million plants, animals, fossils, and cultural artifacts from across the globe and throughout history. Our diverse team includes leading biodiversity scientists, educators, storytellers, designers, and communicators who are passionate about advancing knowledge and catalyzing action through science and storytelling.

Whether you're conducting research behind the scenes or engaging the public on the museum floor, your work will help connect people to the natural world and empower them to protect it.

Organizational Culture

When you join the California Academy of Sciences, you become part of a mission-driven community that values curiosity, collaboration, and innovation, and celebrates its accomplishments together. Staff share a commitment to executing a new strategic plan that will strengthen the organization’s financial foundations, cultivate a vibrant internal culture, and foster smart growth to secure the Academy’s future.

We hope you are inspired by what we do and are motivated to contribute to our mission. The Academy is looking for candidates who do great work, and we know they may come from a number of different backgrounds and experiences. We encourage you to apply even if you do not believe you meet every qualification for the position.

This position is based in San Francisco, California. The specific onsite/hybrid schedule for this position is listed below.

Position Summary

The Associate Director, Creative Technology will help shape the future of museum experiences at the California Academy of Sciences. Leading the Experience Studio’s Creative Technology function, they will set the creative and technical vision for bold new experiences—from groundbreaking immersive exhibitions and interactive environments to new experiences in the Morrison Planetarium.

This is an opportunity to shape a next‑generation museum: responsive, playful, transformative, and deeply connected to the natural world. The role will focus heavily on innovation, using creative coding, AI, physical computing, real‑time media, projection, spatial audio, and emerging technologies to turn ambitious ideas into unforgettable visitor experiences.

Reporting to the Senior Director of Experience, the Associate Director will build and lead a talented multidisciplinary team and partner with a broad network of technology partners. They will bring together the Academy’s deep expertise with new capabilities, collaborators, and ways of working to create a new generation of visitor experiences, while ensuring systems remain reliable, sustainable, and ready to evolve.

What You’ll Get to Build

At the California Academy of Sciences, the Creative Technology team invents experiences that have never existed before, such as:

• Immersive and interactive installations where visitors explore phenomena from ocean ecosystems to microscopic worlds through computer vision, motion tracking, sensing technologies, and physical computing.
• Morrison Planetarium experiences that combine large‑format projection, real‑time visualization, spatial audio, media playback, and show‑control systems.
• Real‑time generative media and physical‑digital hybrids combining lighting, projection, sound, software, and mechanical systems.
• Experimental prototypes and reusable technology platforms that test new forms of science storytelling before scaling into full exhibitions.
• With more than a million visitors each year, the Academy serves as a living laboratory for building, testing, operating, and refining immersive science experiences.

How We Work

The Experience Studio operates like a creative lab. Our team prototypes early, tests ideas with visitors, and iterates quickly, combining in‑house engineering and development expertise with a curated network of creative technology collaborators.

This role has the freedom and responsibility to explore new tools, shape the technical direction of major visitor experiences, and establish the systems and practices that keep them working over time. The Associate Director is both a strategist and a maker–equally comfortable setting a multi‑year technology roadmap, guiding a large‑scale installation, reviewing a planetarium systems plan, and diving into code, sensors, controls, or real‑time media experiments.

Position Duties and Responsbilities

New Experience Development – Primary Focus

• Serve as Creative Technology Lead on major exhibition, immersive, interactive, and planetarium initiatives from early visioning and technical concepting through development, integration, installation, commissioning, launch, and operational handoff.
• Drive velocity and team ambition by collaborating with colleagues during early exhibit discovery and ideation, producing proof‑of‑concept examples, rapid hardware/software sketches, and helping to inspire new thinking about exhibit possibilities, helping risks to be understood by the broader team long before design decisions become fixed.
• Lead hands‑on prototyping, iterative development, and visitor testing to ensure experiences are engaging, accessible, high‑performing, maintainable, and durable in a high‑volume public environment.
• Foreground emerging technologies, including computer vision, projection mapping, touchless interaction, generative AI, AR/VR/XR, and physical computing, with a critical, audience‑centered focus on advancing the Academy’s mission.
• Oversee technical deliverables—including system architectures, specifications, interaction flows, network requirements, commissioning plans, and operational documentation—and direct specialized studios, contractors, integrators, and vendors from scope development and proposal evaluation through performance management and delivery.
• Engage with subject matter experts in the sciences to develop novel experience technologies for the Academy which help make knowledge about our natural world exciting and accessible to a general audience.
• Other duties as assigned.

Strategic Leadership & Team Management

• Lead the Creative Technology function within the Experience Studio, setting its vision, priorities, and ways of working; partner across planetarium, exhibitions, science, and operations to deliver a cohesive, ambitious visitor experience vision as the accountable strategic lead for public‑facing technology.
• Develop and maintain a multi‑year technology roadmap integrating new experience development, system lifecycle needs, capital planning, and institutional priorities; clearly communicate opportunities, risks, tradeoffs, budgets, and investment recommendations to leadership and non‑technical stakeholders.
• Manage, coach, and develop a multidisciplinary team of creative technologists, electronic engineers, and planetarium engineers, balancing capacity between ambitious new work and the reliable operation of existing systems.
• Foster a culture of experimentation, creative risk‑taking, technical excellence, accountability, and continuous learning.

Public Experience Systems & Lifecycle Management

• Oversee the technology portfolio supporting public experiences, providing strategic leadership for systems across exhibition interactives and Morrison Planetarium—including projection, visualization, immersive media, sensors, and supporting infrastructure—to ensure reliable daily operation.
• Establish standards and practices for preventive maintenance, monitoring, troubleshooting, incident response, documentation, backups, spares, configuration management, testing, commissioning, and operational handoff.
• Assess condition, obsolescence, cybersecurity dependencies, vendor support, and technical risk; develop prioritized multi‑year upgrade, replacement, and capital‑investment plans that minimize visitor impact and are fully supportable in daily operations.
• Maintain effective service relationships and support agreements with vendors, integrators, fabricators, and specialized contractors; track reliability, maintenance performance, system health, and readiness to inform priorities and investment decisions.
• Follow Academy safety regulations and institutional policies, and perform other duties as assigned.

Qualifications

Experience and/or Education:

Required and Preferred:

• Professional Experience & Leadership: 10+ years in creative technology and immersive media, including 3–5 years in technical leadership; proven ability to deliver complex, large‑scale public experiences—such as museum exhibitions or planetariums—utilizing real‑time media, interactive environments, and physical computing through full project lifecycles.
• Education: Bachelor’s degree in a relevant technical or design field required; advanced degree preferred.

Skills and Abilities

Required and Preferred:

• Innovation & Emerging Technology: Demonstrated experience developing and implementing innovative experiences, including immersive and emerging technology formats, across the visitor journey—from pre‑visit engagement through the on‑site experience and post‑visit connection.
• Strategic Leadership & Lifecycle Management: Drive creative technology strategy and team culture while leading the full lifecycle of complex initiatives— from roadmaps, budgets, and risk assessment to maintenance, upgrades, and operational handoff.
• Industry Relationships and Resource Development: Demonstrated ability to develop collaborator networks across multiple industries and areas of research, always seeking to identify new opportunities for innovation in Academy experiences and tools.
• Communication and Collaboration: Proven ability to facilitate productive, efficient collaboration across diverse roles including administration, data science, creative, physical/natural science, engineering architecture and fabrication disciplines, both internally and externally.
• Technical Expertise: Demonstrate deep knowledge of real‑time development (e.g., Unity, Unreal, TouchDesigner), interactive systems, physical computing, generative AI, and AV/projection integration, with familiarity in planetarium environments.
• Technical Proficiency: Possess fluency in modern programming languages (e.g., Python, C++, JS) and essential collaboration software (e.g., Asana, Google Workspace).

Physical Environment

To perform this job successfully, an individual must be able to perform each essential job duty satisfactorily. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable qualified individuals with disabilities to perform essential job functions.

• Ability to transport up to 30 lbs, stand or walk exhibit floors, review installations, and participate in on‑site fabrication and installation activities as needed.
• Frequent use of a computer and participation in in‑person and virtual meetings.

Compensation and Benefits

The salary range for this position is $150,000 - 165,000. Actual compensation will be commensurate with the final candidate's qualifications and experience, including skills, knowledge, relevant education, certifications and aligned with the internal peer group. We believe in fair and equitable compensation practices and are committed to providing competitive salaries within the industry and market standards. The Academy offers a total compensation package that emphasizes both base salary and comprehensive benefits based on the hours per week worked. Further details regarding compensation and benefits will be discussed during the interview process.

Hybrid, 3 days / week onsite, 40 hours per week

The California Academy of Sciences will give full consideration for employment to all qualified applicants with criminal histories in a manner consistent with the requirements of the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance (SF Police Code, Article 49).