Rendering Engineer

Zeromatter Technologies Inc; Mountain View (CA); On-site; USD 140,000 - 240,000; Full time

Job summary

Zeromatter is seeking a Rendering Engineer to build and optimize our photorealistic simulation platform. You will advance physically accurate rendering with state-of-the-art light transport and material models, collaborating across sensor teams and ML groups to produce synthetic data for perception pipelines.

Joining our team means working at the intersection of physics, graphics, and HPC to push the boundaries of virtual worlds for autonomous systems.

Qualifications

• Engineering degree or equivalent experience.
• Deep understanding of modern rendering techniques including path tracing and bidirectional methods.
• Strong knowledge of physically-based rendering, material models, and light transport theory.
• Experience with graphics and GPU programming in C++ and/or Rust.
• Proficiency with at least one modern graphics API (Vulkan, DirectX 12, Metal, or CUDA).
• Advanced mathematics including linear algebra, calculus, and probability.
• Strong optimization knowledge for CPU and GPU.

Responsibilities

• Enhance and optimize in-house GPU-accelerated path tracing engine for sensor simulation.
• Implement light transport algorithms for physically accurate rendering across spectra.
• Develop material models to simulate real-world optical properties.
• Create and improve sensor simulation models (cameras, LiDAR, radar) with sensor team.
• Design and implement performance optimizations for massive-scale simulations.
• Collaborate with technical artists to enable realistic environments/workflows.
• Work with ML engineers to ensure rendered data supports perception model training.
• Research and integrate emerging rendering techniques from academia and industry.

Skills

Path tracing

Light transport theory

Material models

GPU optimization

ML integration

Sensor understanding

Education

Engineering degree in CS/EE/related field

Tools

C++

Rust

Vulkan/DirectX/Metal/CUDA

Job description

As a Rendering Engineer at Zeromatter, you'll build the foundation of our photorealistic simulation platform. You'll develop and optimize cutting-edge rendering techniques that create virtual worlds indistinguishable from reality (not just to human eyes, but to the diverse sensors that power autonomous systems). This role sits at the intersection of physics, computer graphics, and high-performance computing, giving you the opportunity to push the boundaries of what's possible in physically-accurate rendering while directly influencing how the next generation of robotics and autonomous systems perceive and learn from synthetic environments.

Responsibilities

• Enhance and optimize our in-house GPU-accelerated path tracing engine for sensor simulation.
• Implement state-of-the-art light transport algorithms to achieve physically accurate rendering across the electromagnetic spectrum.
• Develop material models that accurately simulate real-world optical properties.
• Create and improve sensor simulation models (cameras, LiDAR, radar, etc.) in collaboration with our sensor characterization team.
• Design and implement performance optimizations for massive-scale simulations.
• Work closely with technical artists to enable workflows for creating realistic environments and materials.
• Collaborate with ML engineers to ensure rendered data meets the needs of perception model training.
• Research and integrate emerging rendering techniques from academia and industry to continually advance the platform's capabilities.

Qualifications

• Engineering degree in a related field (e.g. computer science, mechanical engineering, physics, math, robotics, etc.) or equivalent working experience.
• Deep understanding of modern rendering techniques including path tracing, bidirectional methods and learned approximations.
• Strong knowledge of physically-based rendering, material models, and light transport theory.
• Experience with graphics and GPU programming in C++ and/or Rust.
• Proficiency with at least one modern graphics API (Vulkan, DirectX 12, Metal, or CUDA).
• Advanced mathematics skills, particularly in linear algebra, calculus, and probability.
• Strong understanding of optimization techniques for both CPU and GPU computation.
• Bonus: Experience with rendering for simulation or synthetic data generation.
• Bonus: Background in machine vision and non-visible light transport.
• Bonus: Knowledge of sensor simulation (cameras, LiDAR, radar).
• Bonus: Experience implementing research papers from SIGGRAPH, HPG, EGSR, or similar venues.
• Bonus: Familiarity with ML workflows and synthetic data requirements for training.