Job Type: Full-time
Candidate must be local and work in-house in Richardson, TX.
Brazen Animation is an AUDACIOUS GATHERING OF ARTISTS, innovators, and creators. We are here to tell transcendent stories that endure for ages. Through our cutting edge technology, bold visuals, and character driven stories, we set ourselves apart as we strive to be UNIQUE, PURPOSE DRIVEN, AND UNABASHEDLY BRAZEN. Our company exists to push the limits of animation, redefine creative storytelling, and encourage people to pursue greatness. Put simply, we want everyone to BE BRAZEN!
Job Summary:
Our Head of Technology will manage the technical goals of the studio across all departments. They are responsible for the technical resources of shows and the studio as well as driving technological advancements and innovation. They advise and directly supervise the Tech Developers and liaise with department supervisors on development needs and efforts. Their holistic view of the technical landscape will be built by understanding the current and future needs, formulating a new plan or modifying the current structure, designing new pipeline tools, by creating an efficient and user-friendly system. This individual is a visionary in the technology field and is able to innovate the technology, people, and processes for continued growth and maximum output.
They will provide technical engineering leadership within the team and will work collaboratively with internal and external IT resources to provide highly available and scalable core infrastructure services. This includes system analysis, design, troubleshooting, system integration development of new tools to improve existing systems, as well as providing hardware support for the company. Budget and P&L responsibilities are included in building out this core department within Brazen.
An additional key area of responsibility will be to lead the planning, organizing, and creation of our proprietary studio production software tracking system. As Product Owner, you will work closely with and manage developers and designers to build this tool and obtain feedback and test data from users to build to completion. This system will be used internally and also as a revenue generating division once completed.
Essential Functions and Responsibilities
- IT Support – Oversee the technical aspects of our clients and Brazen’s intellectual properties ensuring smooth and efficient production pipelines by identifying, analyzing, strategizing, budgeting, and implementing improvements using tools, processes, people and systems.
- Financial Planning – Provide resource projections during development, pre-production, and production for all technical projects.
- Product Development & Management – Oversee product development team to enhance development on our proprietary production software system to create efficiencies, simplifications, clearly defined processes, effective resource utilization, and planning the strategy to monetize the tool for external use.
- Project Management – Plan using the Agile method of project management, recommending and finalizing the IT sprint schedules. Leverage resources to create, monitor and track progress to maximize output, predict, identify, and resolve technical issues inhibiting production quotas or all departments.
- Work with the CG Supervisor to identify and implement production workflow processes and create technical standards and conventions
- Manage and assist the renderfarm with the tech team.
- Proactively watch for and address data integrity issues, and identify and implement data and performance optimization
- Hardware/Software Management – Manage, budget, and supervise infrastructure services and needs, ensuring the studio is equipped to handle current and future technological demands.
- Collaboration
- Creates, models and supports a collaborative work environment within the Technology team as well as cross-departmental
- Identifies solutions and compromises in partnership with other department leaders utilizing a holistic view
- Collaborate with Product Owners and Leadership Team to ensure all needs are understood and objectives are met for a successful project
- Communication
- Provide regular updates to convey progress, problems, solutions, and direction of the team
- Work with studio leadership to adjust planning and scheduling of technology goals
- Inform the team of technology changes and updates
- Studio Stewardship
- Actively foster an inclusive, innovative, and collaborative environment so every employee can contribute at the highest levels
- Engage in the creation and execution of technical standards, pipeline conventions and workflows to support the department, show and studio
- Partner closely with peers and Talent Managers to support an environment of creativity, trust, and innovation.
Required Skills and Expertise
- Previous leadership experience that demonstrates a strong ability to lead and mentor others
- Demonstrated history of critical thinking, problem solving and project management skills
- Ability to architect new technology and processes
- Strong understanding of the filmmaking process (preferred)
- Strong desire to build tools for artists, solve problems, and INNOVATE
- COLLABORATE with artists and production to meet their project and workflow needs.
- You are GRITTY when it comes to working hard and solving issues
- A BOLD and strong collaborator and communicator
Qualifications
- Bachelor’s degree or higher in Computer Science, Engineering, related field, or equivalent experience
- Strong knowledge of each of the following technical areas:
- 3D Modeling, Rigging, Camera and Animation, Simulation and Effects
- 3D Texture painting and mapping techniques
- 3D Lighting and Compositing techniques
- The Unix/Linux environment
- Python scripting
- C/C++ programming
- CVS, git, or a similar version control system
- Maya®, GI Rendering, Nuke® (or comparable compositing system)
- File management systems
- Queueing systems
- Data management, storage and optimization
- Software and web development experience
This job description is not meant to be all inclusive. Employees may be required to perform other duties to meet the ongoing needs of the organization.
Please be prepared to provide references.