Senior Rendering Engineer

Storyteq; Cape Town; On-site; ZAR 900,000 - 1,300,000; Full time

Job summary

Storyteq is seeking a Senior Graphics/Systems Engineer to own the core rendering engine for web-based graphics, video, and banner production. You will shape frame-accurate playback, multi-threaded rendering, and performance strategies while staying hands-on in code.

You will work on canvas/GPU compositing, WebGL/WebGPU shaders, and AI-assisted features, collaborating across teams to deliver end-to-end value in a browser-based ad builder environment.

Qualifications

• Core graphics programming on the web, including SVG/Canvas at minimum.
• Strong JavaScript/TypeScript performance engineering with workers, OffscreenCanvas, memory profiling.
• Solid understanding of video fundamentals: frames, color, encode/decode, A/V sync.
• 5+ years delivering graphics, systems, or front-end software in production.

Responsibilities

• Own the system that turns layer compositions into correct pixels for banners, images, or video in real time.
• Implement frame-accurate playback pipeline with WebCodecs and audio/video sync.
• Design multi-threaded rendering architecture using Web Workers and OffscreenCanvas.
• Maintain ruthlessly high performance and memory discipline with profiling and optimizations.
• Incorporate AI-powered capabilities into the product and contribute to tech strategy.
• Mentor teammates and drive quality through code reviews and shared ownership.

Skills

Graphics on web

JS/TS performance

Video fundamentals

Production experience

Tools

WebGL

WebGPU

WebCodecs

Shaders

Job description

Hi, we are Storyteq

Storyteq helps marketing and creative teams in top brands scale their creative production and gain control over their marketing campaigns. Through our platform, clients streamline campaign workflows, automate creative production through templates and AI, and activate engaging campaigns that go to market faster. We believe creativity takes time, but creative production shouldn’t. Since 2016 our mission has been to revolutionize the way creative assets are produced and activated. Magic happens when we let technology empower creativity. Our endless curiosity and relentless commitment to our customers lies at the heart of our problem-solving approach, and this shared mission is woven into our values: we dream big, think differently, and are stronger together.

About the job

This is a graphics and systems role that happens to live on the web platform. It is not a typical frontend job, and here’s why. We’ve built a professional ad builder for video, image, and banner creative that runs entirely in the browser, and many clients already use it to automate and scale their creative at volume. Now we’re taking it to the next level with AI, and the rendering and playback engine is what makes that leap possible. It’s the core that turns generated and edited creative into polished, high-quality output in real time. The hard problems here are rendering, performance, and real-time media, not UI plumbing. As a senior engineer, your impact goes beyond shipping features. You’ll shape the architecture of that engine, raise the bar for real-time rendering quality across the team, and help other engineers grow while staying hands-on in the code yourself.

What you’ll own

You’ll own the system that turns a composition of layers, media, and effects into correct pixels, whether that’s a static banner, an image, or a video playing back in real time while the user edits. Concretely, that means:

• Canvas and GPU compositing: Canvas 2D for layout, text, shapes, and vector work, together with WebGL and WebGPU shaders for blending, transitions, color grading, and effects
• A frame-accurate playback pipeline: decode via WebCodecs, keep audio and video in sync, and keep it smooth under real compositions
• The multi-threaded architecture (Web Workers, OffscreenCanvas, transferable buffers) that keeps rendering off the main thread
• Ruthless performance and memory discipline: texture pooling, allocation-free hot loops, and profiling to hunt down every stall
• Using AI as part of how you build, with coding assistants and agents in your daily workflow, and helping shape how we bring AI-powered capabilities into the product itself
• Raising the bar across the team through thoughtful code reviews, mentorship, and shared ownership, and collaborating across teams to deliver end-to-end value

The hard part isn’t any single API. It’s that the browser is a hostile environment for real-time media: one main thread, an unpredictable garbage collector, no direct hardware access, and video frames measured in tens of megabytes. Your job is to win that fight, defending the frame budget frame after frame without a stutter. There’s no framework that does this for you. This is engine-level code, closer to a game engine than to a web app. If that description makes you excited rather than nervous, we should talk.

What we’re looking for

Core:

• Graphics programming on the web: SVG and Canvas at a minimum
• Serious JavaScript/TypeScript performance engineering: workers, OffscreenCanvas, memory profiling, and the discipline to allocate nothing in a hot loop
• Genuine understanding of video fundamentals: frames, color, decode and encode, and audio/video synchronization
• 5+ years of hands-on experience delivering graphics, systems, or front-end software in production

What makes you senior for this role:

• You define the rendering architecture rather than implement against someone else’s. The WebGL-versus-WebGPU strategy and fallback plan, the performance budgets, and the memory and threading model are yours to own.
• You take ownership of outcomes, not just tasks, and see work through from problem to production.
• You make the people around you better through reviews, mentoring, and the standards you set, so the team’s output improves because you’re on it.

You might come from

The people who are great at this often don’t have a traditional frontend résumé, and that’s completely fine. You might be:

• A game-engine programmer curious about the web platform
• A native media or VFX developer (C++, Metal, OpenGL, plugin author) who wants to build for reach
• A graphics programmer from any background who thinks in draw calls and render passes
• We care that you’ve fought this kind of fight before, not which language you fought it in.

Nice to have

• Hands-on WebGL and/or WebGPU, plus shader work (GLSL or WGSL)
• Hands-on WebCodecs
• Prior work on an NLE, creative tool, or media application (After Effects plugins, DAWs, and similar all count)
• Color management: color spaces, gamma, Rec.709/sRGB
• Rust or C/C++ compiled to WASM for CPU-bound kernels such as audio DSP, software decode, or pixel operations
• Vue.js 3 experience
• Familiarity with CI/CD workflows and cloud-based deployments
• Experience in a multi-team platform environment with shared components or design systems

What this role is not

We’re not looking for framework expertise. Vue, React, state management libraries: fluency in TypeScript is expected, but none of the app-framework world is what this job is about, and it won’t be how we evaluate you. If you’re looking for a standard product-frontend role, this isn’t it. If you want to build a real-time rendering engine in the browser, it very much is.

Things we love at Storyteq

• Take ownership
• Focus on impact
• Be ambitious

We Value Diversity

We champion and welcome diversity in our workforce and ensure all job applicants receive equal and fair treatment, regardless of age, race, gender or gender identity, religion, sexual orientation, disability, or nationality.

We are not only committed to increasing the visibility and recognition of talent from under-represented groups within our organisation, but the wider industry too.

At the end of the day, we make sure we take time to look after ourselves, each other, and the planet, because we’re always stronger together.

ITG have a number of community groups available to employees and exist to offer a safe space for like-minded colleagues, with shared interests to connect, socialise and check in with each other.

These include Black ITGers Together, LGBTQ+ Together, Mens Health Together, Muslims Together, Neurodiversity Together, Working Parents and Carers Together and Women In Tech Together.

#LI-LM1