Staff Software Engineer, Production Tech for Animation

1414 Walt Disney Pictures; California (MO); On-site; USD 156,000 - 209,000; Full time

Job summary

Walt Disney Animation Studios is seeking a Staff Software Engineer for USD Authoring to join its Production Technology team in Burbank, CA. You will lead development across core libraries and artist-facing tools, building workflows that enable access to shot and asset content while collaborating with artists, production leadership, and other technologists.

The role emphasizes designing architectures for new frameworks, extending APIs, and delivering high-performance tools used in feature film

Qualifications

• Strong experience with C++ (including x11/x14)
• Strong experience with Python
• Strong experience with USD (Universal Scene Description)
• Strong experience with Qt (desktop development)
• 7+ years designing and developing interactive tools, 3+ years in senior technical roles
• Experience designing APIs from scratch and extending existing frameworks
• Ability to collaborate with stakeholders across disciplines
• Leadership in cross-functional engineering initiatives
• Bachelor’s degree in CS/CE/EE or related field
• Masters in CS preferred

Responsibilities

• Design and implement core infrastructure to manage shot, environment, and asset definitions and structures.
• Build APIs to access shot content for artist-facing tools and data management.
• Solve technical obstacles encountered by artists to support productions.
• Extend and improve core libraries used for end-user tool creation.
• Create user interfaces and tools for artists and technical directors to author, edit, access, and inspect content.
• Integrate new external DCCs into our pipeline and write plugins for 3rd party apps.
• Develop artist dashboards for consolidation and collaboration visibility across characters, environments, story, and film making processes.
• Collaborate with production leadership and cross-site engineers to define architectural vision for new frameworks.

Skills

C++

Python

APIs design

Cross-team collaboration

Education

BS in Computer Science/Engineering

Tools

USD

Qt

Job description

Walt Disney Animation Studios is seeking a Staff Software Engineer for USD Authoring to join its Production Technology team in Burbank, CA. You will lead development across core libraries and artist-facing tools, building workflows that enable access to shot and asset content while collaborating with artists, production leadership, and other technologists.

The role emphasizes designing architectures for new frameworks, extending APIs, and delivering high-performance tools used in feature film