Staff Software Engineer - USD Authoring

The Walt Disney Company; Burbank (CA); On-site; USD 156,000 - 209,000; Full time

Job summary

The Walt Disney Animation Studios seeks a veteran developer to join our Production Technology team in California. You will own the full stack of in-house tools—from core algorithms to artist-friendly interfaces—while collaborating with artists to craft robust pipelines used across feature productions.

Qualified candidates have deep C++ and Python expertise, strong USD/Qt experience, and a track record of leading tool development and API design in cross-disciplinary teams.

Qualifications

• Strong experience with C++ (including x11/x14) or equivalent experience.
• Strong experience with Python or equivalent experience.
• Strong experience with USD (Universal Scene Description).
• Strong experience with Qt (for desktop development) or equivalent experience.
• 7+ years experience designing and developing interactive tools, with 3+ years in senior technical roles designing core infrastructure.
• Partner with Technology leadership to establish architectural vision for key new frameworks including data models, GUI toolkits, and underlying core libraries and evaluation engines.
• Extensive experience designing APIs from scratch as well as designing APIs that extend existing frameworks.
• Ability to collaborate with team members across different disciplines including directly interfacing with stakeholders to understand requirements.
• Experience guiding cross disciplinary teams of engineers over open ended technical problem domains.
• Demonstrated ability to lead development from architectural design to implementation, and through adoption, helping build adoptions plans and strategies with incremental integration milestones through a collaboration with key stakeholders.
• Exemplary communication, teamwork and problem solving skills, balancing the timeliness of solutions with their sustainability. Able to collaborate with team and leadership to prioritize competing demands based on business value.
• BS in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Electrical Engineering, or related field

Responsibilities

• Design and implement core infrastructure to support shot, environment, and asset definitions and structures.
• Build APIs to enable artist-facing and data management tools to access shot content.
• Support productions by solving technical obstacles for artists.
• Extend and improve core libraries used for end-user tool creation.
• Create new user interfaces and tools for artists and technical directors to author and inspect content.
• Adopt new external DCCs and integrate them into our pipeline.
• Write tools/plugins into 3rd party apps for story development.
• Develop dashboards for consolidating and managing tasks and collaboration.

Skills

C++

Python

USD

Qt

7+ years experience

Education

BS in CS/CE/EE

Tools

Qt toolkit

Job description

At Walt Disney Animation Studios we have a deep commitment to the philosophy that creativity inspires technology, and technology inspires creativity. Engineers in our Production Technology department are charged with developing and implementing new algorithms to solve unique and challenging problems for all of our animated content. We do this working alongside a user base that shares a collaborative environment with us, and uses the code we develop to make our feature films.

Projects Include

• Designing and implementing core infrastructure to manage our shot, environment, and asset definitions and structures
• Building new APIs to allow for artist-facing and data management tools to more readily access shot content
• Supporting our productions by identifying and solving technical obstacles encountered by our artists
• Extending and improving the core libraries used for end-user tool creation
• Creating new user interfaces and tools for artists and technical directors to author, edit, access, and inspect shot and asset content
• Adopting new external DCC’s and integrating them into our pipeline
• Writing new tools and plugins into 3rd party apps for rough to fine story development
• Devising artist dashboards for consolidating and managing tasks, encouraging collaboration and visibility into the characters, environments, story and the overall film making process

What does it mean to be a developer here at WDAS?

• Our engineers get the opportunity to work on the full stack of our tools, from developing the underlying algorithms through building intuitive artist-friendly interfaces.
• Work hand in hand with artists to make the tools we need for the incredibly complex and rich characters and environments featured in our movies.
• Develop on top of a highly performant, extendable in-house application framework.
• Develop new artist-centric interaction models using the latest hardware and technologies.

Key Qualifications

• Strong experience with C++ (including x11/x14) or equivalent experience
• Strong experience with Python or equivalent experience
• Strong experience with USD (Universal Scene Description)
• Strong experience with Qt (for desktop development) or equivalent experience
• 7+ years experience designing and developing interactive tools, with 3+ years in senior technical roles designing core infrastructure
• Partner with Technology leadership to establish architectural vision for key new frameworks including data models, GUI toolkits, and underlying core libraries and evaluation engines.
• Extensive experience designing APIs from scratch as well as designing APIs that extend existing frameworks.
• Ability to collaborate with team members across different disciplines including directly interfacing with stakeholders to understand requirements
• Experience guiding cross disciplinary teams of engineers over open ended technical problem domains.
• Demonstrated ability to lead development from architectural design to implementation, and through adoption, helping build adoptions plans and strategies with incremental integration milestones through a collaboration with key stakeholders.
• Exemplary communication, teamwork and problem solving skills, balancing the timeliness of solutions with their sustainability. Able to collaborate with team and leadership to prioritize competing demands based on business value.
• BS in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Electrical Engineering, or related field

Bonus Qualifications

• Understanding of computer graphics foundational concepts, and algorithms
• Knowledge of animation, graphics techniques and algorithms
• Experience building clean interfaces using modern UI development toolkits such as Qt
• Experience leading cross-functional technical initiatives, aligning engineering efforts with broader organizational, production, or business priorities.
• Ability to mentor and develop engineers through technical guidance, knowledge sharing, career coaching, and fostering a collaborative team environment.
• Strong mathematical fundamentals, including linear algebra and numerical methods
• Strong understanding of coding process, standards, continuous integration and testing principles
• Masters in Computer Science

The hiring range for this position in California is $155,700 - $208,700 per year based on a 40 hour work week. The amount of hours scheduled per week may vary based on business needs. The base pay actually offered will take into account internal equity and also may vary depending on the candidate's geographic region, job-related knowledge, skills, and experience among other factors. A bonus and/or long-term incentive units may be provided as part of the compensation package, in addition to the full range of medical, financial, and/or other benefits, dependent on the level and position offered.