Weta Digital is seeking Expressions of Interest for a Software Engineer to join the Look Dev R&D department. Our mission is to create and support all the tools used for Look Development within the company, including texturing, material authoring, shading surfacing, appearance modelling. We also conduct research in appearance-related problems, such as material models, material filtering, material measurement, texture creation, for the purposes of improving quality and efficiency of Look Development.

To be considered for this role you will have extensive software engineering expertise and a solid computer graphics R&D background.

Your responsibilities will include, but not be limited to:

• Participating in code design and code reviews within the Look-Dev R&D department.
• Implementing and testing new Look-Dev technology within a production pipeline.
• Providing support for Look-Dev tools to hundreds of production users.
  

Required qualifications:

• 3+ years of solid C++ software development experience.
• Good understanding of computer graphics techniques (linear algebra, material models, light transport algorithms, geometry processing tools, etc).
• Ability to translate a paper or research idea into practical and efficient production code.
• Ability to design, write, debug and share code within a team.
• Great communications skills and English language fluency.
• Ability to listen to and empathise with users.
  

Bonus requirements:

• Previous experience in computer graphics research.
• Previous experience in software engineering in the VFX industry.

Why join us?

Weta Digital is an industry-leading, award-winning visual effects and animation facility based in Wellington, New Zealand. We offer a flexible, creative, dynamic and supportive environment, and the opportunity to work with leading-edge technology. We are an equal-opportunity organisation who value diversity.

If this opportunity interests you, we’d love to see your application.

Weta Digital is an industry-leading, award-winning visual effects and animation facility based in Wellington, New Zealand. We offer a flexible, creative, dynamic and supportive environment, and the opportunity to work with leading-edge technology. We are an equal-opportunity organisation who value diversity.

We have an exciting opportunity for a Junior Generalist/Modeller/Texture Artist who can help to create virtual environments and sets for Previs and Real Time Motion Capture from high resolution geo/drawings/scans within our Virtual Art Department.

Your skills and experience:

• Experience in production environments and can demonstrate an ability to create accurate models from 2d reference, previs and scan data
• At least 2 years of professional Maya 3D experience
• Have quick & efficient UV & texture skills for texturing assets using Photoshop, Quixel, Substance Painter and/or Mari
  
• Experience with Zbrush and Mudbox
  
• Experience with Cyslice and UV layout would be a plus
• Be a Maya 3D Generalist with strong modelling & texturing skills
• Have some basic layout knowledge
• A qualification in graphic design and multimedia and relevant work experience in games, VR, VFX or commercial related industries

To be successful in this role you will:

• Have a show reel that demonstrates a range of organic and hard surface models with clean and efficient topology (preferably with wireframe stills)
• Be able to work under pressure and to tight deadlines, taking direction and addressing written and verbal notes with quick turnarounds
  
• Enjoy a constantly changing work environment, and be able to compromise and take critique well
  
• Have basic research skills, be able to interpret architectural plans and scan data, with a strong understanding of scale with a talent for real world accuracy
• Have the ability to model as part of a team, to share assets, work to a high standard and quality check your own and other's work
  
• Be able to travel offsite and outside of New Zealand if required
  
• Be eligible to work in New Zealand and available immediately

This is an exciting opportunity to join a department at the centre of ground breaking work. If this sounds like you then apply today!

The Motion Scheduling/Resource Manager is responsible for supporting the Senior Motion Production Manager with the oversight of Resource & Schedule strategy amongst the Motion departments.

Needs to do:

Working with the Senior Production manager to:

• Provide resource plans and forecasting reports for Motion.
• Provide reports of bidding and billing data, show progress and department resource profiles.
• Gather critical information on scheduling and resource planning and adapt future strategies accordingly.
• Meet with Shotgun team on a regular basis to implement new functionality and better efficiency for production teams.

Support Department Managers with:

• Forecasting for their departments.
• Data visualisation & scenario planning for schedules and resources.
• Bidding strategy across Motion depts.
• Building good relationships with show production, central production and adjacent departments.

Support Department Production Managers with:

• Providing a Motion Summary on a weekly basis for each show in Motion.
• Maintaining comprehensive bid documents.
• Providing any bespoke reports requested on a specific show.

Needs to know and have:

• Excellent communication skills – verbal and written
• Has at least five years practical VFX production management experience
• A comprehensive knowledge of Motion Department workflow
• Proven knowledge and experience of scheduling tools
• Excel competence
• Fast-acting and with good time management skills
• Approachable and good at building relationships
• Good analytical skills
• Strong presentation skills
• Inquiring mind
• Happy to not be involved in the day to day production of films, and to not be managing any crew

If this sounds like you we would love to hear from you.

Supporting a crew of 1600, the IT team are responsible for the HTC infrastructure that has helped deliver many iconic films, such as Lord of the Rings, Avatar, and the recent Planet of the Apes trilogy. Working with a small team of influential IT leaders, you will be responsible for taking our IT security and operational effectiveness to the next level.

We offer a flexible, creative, dynamic and supportive environment, and the opportunity to work with leading-edge technology, within one of New Zealand’s largest private data centres. We are an equal-opportunity organisation who value diversity.

Our team culture of collaboration, curiosity, problem solving and openness is key to our success. We’re looking for people who love learning, embrace positive change and are adaptable and creative in the face of a challenge.

What will you be doing?

The Security Architect works with senior management and the wider IT team to proactively deal with the threat of cyber-attacks and data breaches. Taking a people-centric approach, you will lead the hands-on security of the facility’s data, premises, infrastructure, software and processes. You will work to assure the security of new additions and will prioritise security upgrades and the retirement of legacy systems and applications. You will manage security compliance for the facility, respond to client audit and remediation requests, and proactively ensure that we meet and uphold required standards.

Skills and Experience:

• Current experience in the field of cyber-security architecture along with appropriate enterprise software security solutions, access management, mobile technology and other related fields.
• Linux (ideally Ubuntu/CentOS) and Windows system administration experience
• TCP networking and network services knowledge
• At least one scripting language (Python, Perl, Bash)

Experience in business continuity, and a tertiary qualification in IT or a related field would be helpful as would security or other relevant certification(s).

If this sounds like you and you have the genuine commitment, resilience and positive mindset to work for us, please apply today! We'd love to hear from you.

We are looking for a Lead Creature TD to join our award winning team.

Applicants should be experienced and passionate about building photo-realistic creatures. They should have broad anatomical knowledge and be well versed in creation, rigging and simulation of skeletons, muscles, and skin. Mechanical rigging experience and knowledge is also required.

A Lead Creature TD is responsible for reviewing work done by other TDs in the department. They will be hands on with regards to building, rigging and simulating Creatures in order to drive the final deformation of the skin, and are also responsible for helping to ensure consistent controls and rigging approaches to puppets to be used by Animation and other departments.

A Lead Creature TD will work closely with various departments including modelling, motion delivering departments (including animation) and shots.

Within the Creatures Department a Lead Creature TD is expected to run Creatures dailies sessions to both review and QC work done within the department.

They are expected to mentor and advise members of their team. They are also expected to present Creature work to the VFX Supervisor and CG Supervisors that needs approval at that level.

A Lead Creature TD is a point person for other departments to liaise with the Creatures department for the technical aspects of the show or shows they are assigned. They should have impeccable communication skills both verbal and written, and be able to appropriately bid both asset and shot based work.

Strong scripting and debugging skills are a must.

• 7 years or more as a full time senior/lead creature TD on feature films
• Experience with simulation and deformation of photo realistic characters and/or creatures
• Poweruser in Maya
• Poweruser in Python scripting
• Linux experience
• Experience in Cloth and Hair simulation a plus
• Python, and C++ knowledge a plus.
• Must be able to work well in a team environment
• Must be willing to relocate to New Zealand

Production Houdini experience a plus

If this sounds like you we would love to hear from you.

Weta Digital US is looking for a skilled pipeline developer to join our small team in Los Angeles. In this role, you will help us build tools, debug and troubleshoot existing software, and assist in user training and support while working with artists, stage crew, and remote development teams to help bring a major motion capture feature to life.

You will:

• Troubleshoot and liaise with remote development teams to resolve local user issues
• Work with developers to identify underlying causes and propose user-friendly solutions
• Work with the release manager to test new software and workflows
• Work with artists and stage crew to demonstrate new software/workflows and gather feedback

You must:

• Have 3+ years professional experience in the VFX industry as a technical director, pipeline developer, or systems engineer
• Have 3+ years professional experience as a software developer (preferably using Python and/or C++)
• Have 3+ years professional experience working in or supporting a Linux development environment
• Be familiar with the underlying concepts, practices, and systems of VFX
  
• Be willing to work morning or evening hours up to two weeks per month and be available for the possibility of up to one Saturday per month
• Remain calm under pressure
• Be comfortable multitasking and shifting priorities as necessary
• Have excellent written and verbal communication skills
• Currently reside in, and have the right to work in, the United States
• Enjoy an exciting, fast-paced work environment

Preferred:

• Experience with Maya, Motionbuilder, and/or other major VFX applications in complex software environments
• Experience writing Qt GUIs in Python and/or C++
• Experience testing, debugging and contributing to external code bases

If this sounds like you, we would LOVE to hear from you!

(Relocation assistance is not available)

We are looking for a Senior Creature TD to join our award winning team.

Applicants should be experienced and passionate about building photo-realistic creatures. They should have broad anatomical knowledge and be well versed in creation, rigging and simulation of skeletons, muscles, and skin.

A Senior Creature TD is responsible for building, rigging and simulating the internal anatomy of a creature, in order to drive the final deformation of the skin. Also responsible for defining animation controls and rigging puppets to be used by animation and other departments.

Senior Creature TDs work closely with various departments, especially modelling, animation, and shots.
They work alongside the Creature Cloth/Hair TDs to deliver dynamic, realistic creatures.

Strong scripting and debugging skills are a must.

• 5 years or more as a full time senior creature TD on feature films
  
• Experience with skinning and deformation of photo realistic characters and/or creatures
  
• Poweruser in Maya
  
• Poweruser in Python scripting
  
• Linux experience
  
• Experience in Cloth and Hair simulation a plus
  
• Python, Perl, and C++ knowledge a plus.
  
• Must be able to work well in a team environment
  
• Must be willing to relocate to New Zealand

If this sounds like you, we would love to hear from you.

Weta Digital is looking to hire a Production Coordinator to join our Layout team. Role - Responsible for coordinating all matters as required facilitating efficient running of the Show or Department.

Needs to Do

• Track shots/assets
• Schedule assets (In Department Production)
• Responsible for hitting scheduled targets
• Arrange dailies, rounds, meetings, create playlists, take notes and follow up on notes.
• Arrange and/or attend senior VFX Supervisor reviews & Director reviews (create playlists and take & notes)
• Manage artists.
• Request overtime as necessary for Artists to hit their targets.
• Order overtime food as required for Artists working overtime.
• Coordinate delivery & supporting documentation as required.
• If requested by VFX Producer or PM liaise with client to arrange reviews, meetings, conference calls, playlists etc.

Needs to Know

• Previous knowledge of VFX pipeline
• Minimum of 3 years experience in VFX or related field.
• Knowledge of Excel & Word.
• How to manage artists and clients
• Knowledge of scheduling tools, ideally database knowledge, preferably Shotgun.

Needs to Be

• Confident clear communicator
• Sharp & resilient
• Organized & uses initiative
• Ability to handle confidential information
• Comfortable dealing with all levels with the organization, including key executives & senior management
• Able to multitask
• Able to juggle various priorities in a fast paced environment
• Able to troubleshoot & solve problems
• Calm and personable under pressure and when working to tight deadlines.

If this sounds like you, we would love to hear from you!

Title: Crew Manager.

Department: Department Production.

Reporting line: Senior Production Manager – Shots.

Job Description

• To ensure that the Lighting&Comp Department Production Managers are comprehensively supported in all matters relating to performance reviews, hours management and contract renewals
• To take an active lead in ensuring crew development and training is planned, promoted and successful.
  
• Ensure Lighting&Comp Department Production Managers are assigned to projects appropriately.
  

Production Management

• Establish and maintain a high performing, high morale, resilient department culture where conditions are optimized for DPMs to do outstanding work.
  
• Recruitment. Ensure the recruitment of highly talented production crew who are a good fit for Weta’s culture, pipeline and workflows.
• Onboarding. Ensure that all production crew are effectively on boarded into their department and that they are provided with everything needed for early success.
• Ensure that production crew receive effective training so that they have the knowledge and skills required to deliver their work.
• Ensure timely, objective, evidenced based evaluation of production crew work and performance
• Ensure that all production crew within the department receive timely, meaningful feedback on their work and behaviour as part of an ongoing dialogue that supports their professional growth and development
• Ensure that production crew performance is well managed.
• Contract renewals. Ensure compliance with the owner’s 8-week crew guarantee.
• Overtime management. Where crew are working significant overtime hours, seek an evaluation of whether that is productive work and whether it can be distributed any further than certain select individuals.
• Strategic casting of production crew. Working in conjunction with the Show, Lighting DM, Comp DM and SPM to create strong project teams, using insights gleaned from feedback and understanding the nature of the project in question.

If this sounds like you we would love to hear from you.

Weta Digital is looking for Department Manager expressions of interest for roles opening up within our growing Production team. We are keen to talk to experienced production candidates who have a track record of handling large teams working on challenging projects.

Job Description:

The Department Manager is responsible for overseeing all scheduled work, managing the department crew and production team. The role is primarily planning and resource-based, entailing the close management and support of crew and the oversight on all department deliverables.

Key Responsibilities:

• Maintain an overview of department schedule and manage resource requirements, working with VFX Producers, Production Managers and central production
• Ensure weekly departmental progress reports are delivered to Show Production in the form of tasks completed, resource plan updates and schedule updates
• Along with Department HoD ensure any planned development work related to the dept tools or pipeline is factored into any show milestones
• A comprehensive understanding of the requirements and challenges of incoming shows shared across the department. Early identification and triage of critical technical and/or creative show challenges (risks and issues) and prioritization of problem solving discussions and initiatives to successfully address these.
• Oversee all scheduling across the department proactively identifying issues and risks, acting as a problem-solving resolution point for these within the department.
• Forecast resource requirements for the department – identifying key shortfalls and anticipating surplus crew scenarios
• Working with HoD to identify areas where development of crew skill-sets can benefit current or upcoming projects.
• Approve artist leave and formulate coverage plans for any artist absence to ensure project targets are not compromised.
• Oversee department recruitment strategy. This includes identifying candidates with HoD and key Leads, establishing hiring windows and targeting candidates within that timeframe. Working with crew services to update job descriptions and maintain a good knowledge base of industry-wide crew trends and project plans.

Needs to know and have:

• Strong communication skills – with an ability to deal with a wide range of different groups, including internal Dept prod team, Show production groups and central production team.
• Effective in crew management, including fostering career development within the team and casting tasks to strengths from available resource pool
• Proven scheduling experience, with a working knowledge of Shotgun a plus
• Concise and comprehensive approach with written communication
• Strong leadership qualities, with a confidence to front department plans and form solid partnership with Dept HoD.

If this sounds like you, we would love to hear from you!

Weta Digital is looking to hire a Creatures Department Production Manager to join our Production team. We are keen to talk to experienced production candidates who have a track record of scheduling and managing through to delivery, large volumes of work on complex VFX projects.

Job Description: The Dept Production Manager is responsible for overseeing the entire schedule of a single project, or a substantial component of a single project within a department at Weta Digital.

Key Responsibilities:

• Managing either the entirety, or a significant proportion of a large show. Supporting the Dept manager with the planning of resource requirements, and ensuring a comprehensive schedule is built, maintained and tracked through to final delivery.
• Sharing responsibility for scheduled targets and working with both department production and show production to ensure the schedule is on track, ensuring that risks and changes are communicated clearly and in good time.
• Reporting on weekly progress, including Stacks (milestone) updates, passing on relevant client feedback and any other supporting information that would benefit the team.

Needs to know and have:

• Proven scheduling experience and knowledge of scheduling tools, ideally database knowledge, preferably Shotgun.
• Good knowledge of Excel & Word.
• Organised and able to multi-task, especially with regards to fielding queries from, and providing updates to multiple groups.
• Capable of motivating and leading teams with enthusiasm
• Able to troubleshoot & solve problems
• Calm and personable under pressure and when working to tight deadlines.
• Able to delegate effectively and provide mentoring to Production Coordinators & Assistants
• A minimum of 3+ years experience working in VFX production

If this sounds like you, we would love to hear from you!

Summary:

We’re a small team of engineers looking after a lot of infrastructure. We monitor, improve, install and manage the infrastructure that supports over 1500 crew and the delivery of world leading visual effects. We support hundreds of servers, Petabytes of network storage, a diverse network setup, and have to meet interesting security requirements. Behind our crew and the films we work on, is the architecture built by the infrastructure team. We’re always on call to keep our systems up and running ensuring we deliver on time and ensure our crew have the best experience possible.

To complement the skillset in our team, we are looking for an experienced Infrastructure engineer with strong hands-on experience in Storage and Data Protection technologies primarily on-premise Storage systems (e.g. NetApp, Oracle ZFS and Pure Storage), Archival and Backup systems (DMF, Commvault with IntelliSnap), and also software defined Scaleout storage (Ceph or IBM Spectrum Scale). Infrastructure Engineers perform both day-to-day support and project work to sustain and improve our large (several thousand hosts), primarily cross-platform infrastructure.

Responsibilities:

• Contribute to the delivery of the best possible storage solutions for the company
• Provide input into the strategic technical direction for storage and data protection
• You lead by example, care for your team, and establish credibility with the quality of your own and your team's work
• Contribute to the effective monitoring of infrastructure ensuring service levels, proactive resolution of issues, and uptime
• Contribute to the design and implementation of creative solutions to difficult infrastructure problems
• Your distaste for toil will drive you to automating the response to all non-exceptional service conditions
• You work directly with crew to understand their requirements, processes and objectives and setting up solutions appropriate to their needs.
• You Interact with vendors to evaluate and configure solution offerings as required
• You complete scheduled outage, maintenance and remedial work outside of normal working hours
• You participate in the Infrastructure on-call and ticket resolution roster
• You write technical procedures and maintain existing documentation

Required Skills:

• NAS and SAN protocols (NFS, CIFS, iSCSI, FCP)
• Effective communication skills
• Good time-management skills
• Ability and desire to learn new things quickly
• Deep understanding of common infrastructure services (DHCP, DNS, email etc.)
• Solid experience with Linux storage and networking

Desirable Experience:

• Specific storage systems (NetApp Data ONTAP filers, Oracle ZFS storage appliance, Ceph, IBM Spectrum Scale, Pure Storage M/X series)
• Data archival and backup (HPE (SGI) DMF, Commvault, Tape library management and maintenance)
• Managing and optimizing (large scale) storage and cache configurations – NFS, CIFS, ZFS, NetApp, Avere
• Enterprise networking knowledge
• Maintaining a large leaf and spine OSPF/ECMP network
• Configuring enterprise networking equipment (any vendor) a plus
• Virtualization and containerization (Vmware, Docker/Kubernetes)
• High performance computing (HPC) environments
• Understanding and using RDBMS software such as MySQL and PostgreSQL
• Monitoring/Automation/Configuration tools (Nagios, Puppet, ELK stack, Grafana)
• Prior experience in the VFX production, entertainment, media or gaming industries

If this sounds like you – we would LOVE to hear from you!

Title: Los Angeles Based Vfx Coordinator

Start date: ASAP

Contract Duration: 6 months (with potential for extension)

Breakdown of duties:

• Organize Weta LA team calendar and meeting schedules
• Assist Weta NZ Leads in task tracking and reporting on work in LA
• Organize meeting schedules, attend meetings and take notes
• Work with Weta LA team to track assigned action items
• Work with Weta LA production supervisor, developers, animators, lighters and FX artists to organize daily tasks
• End of day compile of dept. production notes for submission to production supervisor
• Point of contact for WETA NZ to keep flow of information to Weta LA team
• Organize and submit Weta LA team OT requests to production supervisor for approval
• Track and inform Weta NZ and LA of crew absences or planned vacations

Needs to Know

• Previous knowledge of VFX pipelines both in production and post production
• Minimum of 4 years experience in VFX
• Minimum of 2 years on set experience in production
• Knowledge of Filemaker, Excel & Word (Linux is a plus)
• How to manage artists and clients

Needs to Be

• Confident clear communicator
• Sharp and resilient
• Organized and uses initiative
• Able to handle confidential information and abide by security protocols
• Comfortable dealing with all levels of the production and vendor organization, including key executives & senior management
• Able to multitask
• Able to juggle various priorities in a fast paced environment
• Able to troubleshoot and solve problems
• Calm and personable under pressure and when working with short deadlines

Please note: Candidates must be US Citizens or legal to work in US, and must be a Los Angeles local.

Weta Digital is hiring Lighting Pipeline TDs for the Shots R&D department to help build lighting pipeline tools and workflows. The Shots R&D department provides production tools and work flows for the FX, Lighting, Comp and Matte Painting departments, and solutions that interconnect these departments with other groups in the company.

This is a highly technical position, and would suit a candidate with well developed technical skills and a genuine interest in problem solving. The role requires interaction with artists as well as software engineers and other pipeline groups within the facility. Therefore good communication skills and a willingness to work on multiple varied tasks are essential.

Most importantly, the candidate must be motivated and interested in the opportunity to learn new systems and concepts and be willing and able to adapt to the changing needs of feature film production.

Required skills

• Experience of Katana and VFX lighting pipelines
• Good knowledge of Python development, C/C++ a plus
• Experience with source control systems such as SVN/git
• Confident with working in a Linux environment
• Ability to design, write, debug and share code within a team
• Creating innovative and robust production pipelines and workflow solutions
• Strong interpersonal communication and teamwork skills
• Good time management and problem-solving skills
• English language fluency

Preferred Skills

• Experience with other shading and renderers
• Experience with QT and UX design
• Experience as artist or TD in Lighting
• Degree in Computer Science, Engineering or equivalent work experience

Weta Digital is looking for Fur Groomers for upcoming projects:

Role Description:
Creation and maintenance of hair & fur grooms for characters and creatures using Weta's proprietary software.

Requirements:

• Extensive knowledge of Maya
  
• Good eye for detail and ability to match reference or artwork
  
• Good communication skills and works well in a team environment
  
• Ability to troubleshoot and problem solve
  
• Able to take direction from clients, directors, supervisors or leads
  
• Willing to learn our proprietary fur system
  
• Work to deadlines and within production schedules
  
• A balance of technically and artistically minded
  
• A strong work ethic and willingness to learn
  
• An understanding of VFX production pipelines
  
• Ability to work with an intuitive rather than procedural grooming system.

Ideal skills:

• Previous experience in similar roles
  
• Experience with Unix/Linux systems
  
• Experience with other fur systems (either commercial or proprietary)
  
• Knowledge of lighting, rendering and/or scripting
  
• Ability to model in other areas a bonus

If this sounds like you - please get in touch!

Our Award Winning Facial Team is currently looking for highly motivated Facial Modellers. Qualified candidates must have proven experience in production environments, demonstrated ability with high-end 3D modelling tools to create complex models, and the ability to create accurate facial expressions from video, 2d reference images and scan data.

Additional Requirements:

• Experience sculpting the face and working with facial blendshapes
• Anatomical knowledge of facial muscles and their function
• Experience using Maya in a production environment
  
• An impressive reel demonstrating attention to facial surface detail, underlying facial anatomy, and photo-realistic facial expressions
  
• Able to use a wide range of scan data captured from an actor's performance to extract key shape information and incorporate into an actor or character’s facial puppet
• A good understanding of Facial Action Coding System (FACS)
• Skills in rigging and geometry deformations a plus
• Able to take direction and work independently while being an effective team player
• Excellent organizational and communication skills
  
• Strong problem-solving skills
  
• Knowledge of Linux system to perform daily tasks comfortably
• Experience with Mudbox, and ability to script in MEL and Python a plus
• Experience with Cyslice and UV layout is a plus
  
• Positive attitude and wish to push the boundaries
  

Please note - you must have at least 3 years feature film experience.

If this sounds like you – please get in touch, we would LOVE to hear from you!

Weta Digital is now looking for a Senior level Texture Artist.

Required Skills:

• Evidence of strong artistic skills, which can include drawing and painting, must be presented in portfolio/showreel.
  
• A passion for painting highly detailed photo-realistic textures for work on organic and hard-surface models.
  
• Have strong initiative and problem solving skills to work efficiently and maintain deadlines under pressures.
  
• Be able to work from reference and interpret artistic direction from supervisors.
  
• Experience in look-development such as working with shading networks.
  
• Advanced knowledge of Mari & Photoshop.
  
• Strong knowledge of Maya and UV layout.
  
• Have good communication skills.

Applicant would also ideally have:

• Enjoy being part of a team and be prepared to assist others.
  
• Be willing to share techniques and experience.
  
• Zbrush/Mudbox sculpting experience.
  
• Procedural texturing experience.
  
• Working knowledge of Linux.
  
• Lighting experience.

Please note: A detailed shot breakdown of all material on reel must be provided with application.

The Information Systems teams looks after all production tracking tools at Weta Digital, most of those tools are written in Python. The tools must support the complex nature of the VFX pipeline whilst also providing a performant and intuitive experience for all of our Users across the entire facility. The team is numbered at 19 people – 14 of those are developers. The team is broken up into 4 small functional teams.

We are looking for a very experienced Senior Software Engineer to join the team. Ideally that person would have Python experience but people with other backgrounds could have relevant skills as well. We are looking for someone smart, with a passion for software engineering, web applications, communication tools, new technologies, and providing perfect solutions to happy customers.

In return, you'll have the opportunity to work with talented software engineers providing industry-leading tools within the visual effects and film arena. You will work with passionate, dedicated visual effects artists and technicians in an award-winning company dedicated to innovation and excellence. If this sounds like you, and you have the skills and experience, please get in touch!

Role Responsibilities include:

• Developing, maintaining and ensuring reliability of services, APIs and web applications
• Understanding and implementing solutions for internal customer requirements
• Working closely with the Project Manager to plan work for the 4-person team
• Advising and mentoring other Developers on the team
• Solution and system architecture, and implementation of frameworks and libraries

Key Skills and Attributes:

• Python - preferred but will consider other languages
• Postgres, MySQL or similar enterprise level database server experience
• Exceptional verbal and written communication skills
• Experience with software provisioning tools (Ansible, Docker, Consul - or similar)
• Experience debugging low-level issues (networking, file-system etc)
• At least 2 years of developing on Linux
• Ability to work under pressure
• An eye for detail
• Open minded and inquisitive - enjoy discussion and reaching a decision at the same time as being able to look at technical decisions with a critical and discerning eye
• A desire to learn/improve/keep up to date with the latest trends
• An eagerness to improve things

Desirable Qualifications & Experience:

• Experience with NoSQL and full-text search databases (Redis, Elasticsearch, Solr)
• Experience in collaborating with other technical teams and technical clients
• BS/MS or equivalent in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Information Engineering or equivalent
• At least 4 years prior experience in a similar development role
• Experience leading Junior and Intermediate Developers
• Experience with Javascript (React, Backbone, jQuery)

The Rendering department at Weta Digital is seeking a Compiler Engineer to advance the state of the art in shading language compiler technology and related systems. Extensive experience in compiler design is required, including parsing, typechecking, intermediate representations, and code generation.

The ideal candidate will have a strong academic background including program analysis, program transformation and optimization, and programming language design. Familiarity with shading languages and computer graphics is desirable. Experience with high performance systems that include multi-threading, vectorization, and GPU acceleration is a plus.

Responsibilities:

• Accelerate shading performance in Manuka, a world-class renderer for cinematic visual effects and animation.
• Work with shading department to develop new shader authoring techniques.
• Improve compiler infrastructure, including intermediate representation and code generation.
• Extend the shading language with advanced features (e.g. templates)
• Investigate vectorization and GPU code generation.
• Improve and maintain existing code to improve quality, reliability, and maintainability.
• Find and fix bugs. Proactively test new and existing features to ensure the highest levels of quality.

Requirements:

• A degree in Computer Science and a strong foundation in object-oriented programming.
• Extensive experience writing compilers, including parsing, typechecking, and code generation.
• Extensive programming experience in C++.
• Ability to work independently on a self-directed team in a rapidly changing, deadline-oriented environment.

Desirable qualifications and skills:

• A masters or Ph.D. in Computer Science.
• Understanding of static single assignment and other intermediate representations.
• Familiarity with advanced program transformations like specialization.
• Hands-on experience with the LLVM compiler toolkit.
• Thorough understanding of CPU architecture and the memory hierarchy.
• Knowledge of vectorization is a plus.
• Familiarity with GPU programming.
• Hands-on experience with shading languages
• Knowledge of various rendering technologies, including path tracing, geometry processing, etc.

If this sounds like you – please get in touch – we would love to hear from you!

Weta Digital is seeking a Senior Build Engineer to improve our automated build and release infrastructure. Key aspects of the role include developing standards for building a wide variety of complex C++ and Python projects, and collaborating with engineers from multiple departments to ensure that a common set of best practices is widely adopted. Extensive Python programming experience is a prerequisite, and in-depth experience with a wide range of build systems is required. The ideal candidate will also have a proven track record developing large-scale applications in C++.

Requirements:

• 3+ years of experience as a build engineer for a large software project.
• 3+ years of Python programming experience.
• Comprehensive knowledge of best practices in automating the building C++ and Python projects.
• Hands-on experience with a wide variety of build automation frameworks (e.g. make, cmake, Ninja, Waf).
• Ability to work independently with numerous stakeholders in a customer-oriented production environment.

Desirable experience and skills:

• A degree in Computer Science or a strong background in software engineering.
• Experience programming in C/C++ on a large-scale project.
• Familiarity with Agile development, continuous integration, and automated testing.
• Experience developing tools for visual effects or animated feature production.
• Comfortable working in a Linux development environment.

If this sounds like you – please get in touch – we would LOVE to hear from you!

Job Purpose

Responsible for overall show schedule and for managing everything required for efficient running of the Show. Reports to VFX Producer.

Needs to do

• Create an overall show schedule for all phases of production.
• Schedule and plan resource requirements with the VFX Producer, VFX Supervisor and Resource Manager to plan an effective and efficient approach to completing the show within contractually agreed deadlines.
• Track overall Show Schedule (ie. Shots/Assets). Ensure the VFX team understands the goals and milestone deadlines for assets, shots, sequences and any R&D projects required.
• Responsible for hitting scheduled targets and working with both department production & show production to ensure the schedule is on track.
• Provide regular milestone reports and liaise with departments regarding milestones
• Schedule new turnovers and attend turnover meetings
• Input shots into Shotgun as required
• Establish workflow for organizing and tracking incoming data and then hand off to PA, monitor workflow through out project
• Report Show progress and any delays to VFX Producer
• Inform all necessary parties of any possible/actual delays, reasons and what is being done to avoid further delays. Also, to notify all departments who might be affected by the delay. Adjust schedule accordingly.
• Assist the VFX Producer with the weekly client reports. Liaise with the VFX Producer to ensure the information contained within is accurate at all times.
• Arrange and/or attend senior VFX Supervisor reviews & Director reviews
• If required, communicate with external vendors for Stereo deliveries.
• Manage production team, ensuring roles and responsibilities are clearly defined. Mentor Production P.A’s.
• Request overtime as necessary for artists to hit their targets. Maintain oversight on the amount of overtime worked, ensuring overtime at all times is productive.
• If requested by VFX Producer, liaise with client to arrange reviews, meetings, conference calls, playlists, deliveries, discuss schedule etc.
• Forecast resources for the show using the Forecasting Spreadsheet if required by VFX Producer
• Track Actual Days vs Bid days on all stages of the pipeline

Needs to know and have

• 2+ years Sequence Management experience in VFX or 2+ years previous experience in VFX Production Management
• Proven scheduling experience with a knowledge of Shotgun
• Good knowledge of Excel
• Good communication skills – including interaction with show production team, department groups and supervisors
• Able to manage clients
• Organised and methodical in approach to work
• Calm and positive demeanor
• Clear in planning with artists, supervisors & clients.
• Capable of motivating and leading teams with enthusiasm
• Experience of onset work preferred

If this sounds like you we would love to hear from you.

Weta Digital is seeking an experienced Katana developer for the Shots R&D department to help build and manage the lighting pipeline and workflows. The Shots R&D department provides production tools and work flows for the FX, Lighting, Comp and Matte Painting departments, and solutions that interconnect these departments with other groups in the company. The work requires creating innovative and robust production pipelines and workflow solutions for all rendering needs within Weta Digital.

This is a highly technical position, and would suit a candidate with well-developed technical skills and a genuine interest in problem solving. The role requires interaction with artists as well as software engineers and other pipeline groups within the facility. Therefore, effective communication skills and a willingness to work on multiple varied tasks are essential.

Most importantly, the candidate must be motivated and interested in the opportunity to learn new systems and concepts and be willing and able to adapt to the changing needs of feature film production. We are specifically looking for somebody with the ability to lead and guide a small team.

Required skills:

• Extensive experience of Katana and VFX lighting pipelines
• Extensive knowledge of C/C++ and Python development
• Experience with source control systems such as git
• Experience as an artist or TD in Lighting, FX or Compositing.
• Experience with VFX asset tracking systems
• Confident working in a Linux environment
• Ability to design, write, debug and share code within a team
• Strong interpersonal communication and teamwork skills
• Good time-management and problem-solving skills
• English language fluency

Preferred Skills:

• Experience with QT and UX design
• Degree in Computer Science, Engineering
• Team Lead experience

If this sounds like you, we would love to hear from you!

Weta’s Technology and Research group is the innovation engine of Weta Digital. All large scale projects of the studio are powered by tools invented and developed by the group, and it is well-known how leadership in both the technology and research spaces is a key strategic objective for Weta Digital.

Weta Digital is looking for an experienced, visionary senior research scientist to help guide research and implementation of tools based on computer vision and machine learning (CVML) across our technology and research departments.

As part of our senior technology and research group, you will lead our research in the CVML space and lead a team of developers delivering high quality software in fast paced, challenging and creative environment.

Responsibilities

• Lead research into CVML-based tools and applications across the studio, in fields such as image synthesis, denoising, computer vision, motion analysis and synthesis as well as large scale data discovery, mining and analysis
• Be a key advisor in setting the direction for Weta’s strategy in the CVML space, in collaboration with the Senior Head of Technology and Research to align with the studio’s wider goals
• Work closely with the heads of our technology and research departments to share insight into mutually beneficial opportunities for new solutions, exercising a high level of creative thinking for leveraging CVML to build new, improved tools for the VFX process
• Collaborate with developers to design and ship applications and plugins to enhance the quality of the work of Weta’s artists, improve their focus on the task at hand and empowering them to achieve new levels of excellence in their field, by means of a pleasant, forceful personality and a charismatic communication style
• Seek and maintain long-term collaborations with leading research institution around the world, fostering a climate of collaboration between the industry and academia
• Stay up-to-date and contribute to the applied research in the CVML space, spanning both the theoretical and implementation sides. Apply new technologies in the development and enhancement of our products and processes, and develop a vision for new possibilities. Continuously raise the effectiveness of the team building skill and trust both inside and around it

Required skills and experience

The ideal candidate will have a number of publications in the field, corresponding to observable improvements in tooling similar to Weta’s areas of interest, such as image synthesis, denoising, computer vision, motion analysis and synthesis, data analysis and discovery. The ability to illustrate a vision and a complex set of ideas in a manner appropriate to the present audience will be a crucial asset to the successful candidate.

The candidate will also be able to demonstrate skill in leadership and mentoring roles, ideally involving teams of researcher and engineers or various degrees of seniority as well as project managers and interfacing with testing teams.

Another crucial asset to the successful applicant will be an ability to illustrate best practices of use of the proposed tools to artists and technical directors with a rich diversity of backgrounds, enhancing their understanding of the new possibilities offered by the proposed technology and stimulating a fruitful exchange of ideas with the target user base.

The candidate will also be able to demonstrate a high degree of competence in multi-threaded C++ development on Linux and its associate toolchain, as well as common libraries for CVML applications. It is understood the successful applicant may also be versant in other languages common in this space, such as Java, python or R and the associated library packages

Additional desirable skills

• Image synthesis and rendering
• Animation
• Physically based simulation
• Design of effective user interfaces, workflows and interaction stories for new tasks
• Requirement gathering and an ability to elicit expression of stated as well as latent needs from the target users
• Experience with real-time environments, high performance computing and GPU programming
• Experience working in a professional development team, including collaborations with project managers, tracking tooling such as Jira, regular reporting on progress and similar
• Familiarity with Linux-based environments
• Familiarity with common VFX pipeline tools such as Nuke or Maya and in general the VFX process

Qualifications and requirements

• PhD or Master’s degree and proven track record of excellence in research
• Proven track record of achieving significant results as demonstrated by grants, fellowships, patents, as well as first-authored publications at leading workshops or conferences such as CVPR, ECCV/ICCV, SIGGRAPH, NIPS
• Demonstrated software engineer experience via an internship, previous work experience, coding competitions, or widely used contributions in open source repositories (e.g. GitHub)
• Willing to work in Wellington, New Zealand

Weta Digital is seeking a Pipeline Developer to join the Look-Dev R&D department.

Our mission:

• To create and support all the tools used for Look Development within the company, including texturing, material authoring, shading surfacing, appearance modelling
  
• Conduct research in appearance-related problems, such as material models, material filtering, material measurement, texture creation, for the purposes of improving quatlity and efficiency of Look Development.

The ideal candidate will have extensive pipeline engineering experience within a production environment, as well as software engineering expertise. Internship and junior positions are also available for this role.

Responsibilities:

• Participate in code design and code reviews within the Look-Dev R&D department.
  
• Integrate and test new Look-Dev technology within a production pipeline.
  
• Provide support for Look-Dev tools to hundreds of production users.

Required Qualifications:

• 3+ years experience with Python, Qt and PyQt/PySide.
  
• Experience with programming against database interfaces and domain APIs.
  
• Good understanding of modern programming techniques and tools.
  
• Good problem solving skills.
  
• Ability to write practical and efficient production code.
  
• Ability to design, write, document, test, debug and share code within a team.
  
• Good communications skills and English language fluency.
  
• Comfortable talking to users and developers and understanding feature requests.

Desirable Qualifications:

• Experience with C/C++ programming.
  
• Experience with Maya scripting and programming.
  
• Masters-level degree in Computer Science or equivalent.

If this sounds like you, we would love to hear from you!

Are you interested in working with Weta’s large suite of custom software? Are you able to give clear direction and understand how intelligent constraints lead to innovative strategies? Have you experienced the joy of collaborative end-to-end development with customers? Our Software Engineering team is growing and we're looking for a curious software engineer to join our Core team. You will be working in a large development team on software that spans the entire studio.

Who you are:

• You have a strong suite of VFX software skills, specifically Maya, Renderman, Houdini or Katana plugins
• You have a passion for tools designed to improve workflows
• You help artists translate ideas into solutions
• You make tools that can handle large assets
• You are open-minded and team-focused

Requirements:

• Experience in the VFX industry, writing plugins for any of the following packages: Maya, Renderman, Houdini, Katana
• Expert C++ with complementary experience in Cuda and OpenGL
• 5+ years of applicable experience
• BS/MS in Computer Science or a related subject (or equivalent knowledge and experience)

Who we are:

The Software Engineering department is responsible for continuously improving the pipeline including: procedural modelling and dressing, realtime rendering, 2D imaging, animation and VR. If you value a balanced culture of individual autonomy and group collaboration, are creatively minded, and want to work with people who are passionate about technology and creating digital worlds - we'd love to meet you!

Production Engineering supports and builds software which helps our crew make movies. Our software includes small utilities, plugins for applications like Maya & MotionBuilder, and complex render & asset tracking systems. You will work directly with artists to understand their requirements and then write code which enables them to be more effective at their jobs.

Responsibilities:

• Responsible for supporting and improving the functions and efficiency of existing applications and systems, design and develop high-volume, low-latency applications for mission-critical systems, delivering high-availability and performance.
  
• Successful candidate will also provide advice to the Production Engineering Lead on architecture and structure of Production Engineering deliverables, and will be flexible, able to work with changing project priorities, and deliver quality work on time and to specification.

Requires:

• BS/MS degree in Computer Science, Engineering or a related subject
  
• 5+ years of professional experience as a Java developer
  
• Proficient designing and developing applications using Java 8 and Spring
  
• Proficient with knowledge of relational databases (PostgreSQL)
  
• Understanding of Java and JVM internals (Classloading, Memory Management, Transaction management etc)
  
• Understanding of concurrency, object oriented analysis and design patterns
  
• Experience managing and troubleshooting servers and networks
  
• Experience in designing programming APIs utilised by expert to novice developers
  
• Experience with test-driven development

If this sounds like you – we would LOVE to hear from you!

We are currently taking VFX Producer expressions of interest for future opportunities in 2018.

Job Purpose: Responsible, alongside the VFX Supervisor, for strategising, implementing and managing targets and relationships specific to the VFX delivery of a feature film project. Responsible for managing project budget and overseeing the schedule and workflow of the Show Production team. This is a client facing role. Reports to the Executive Producer.

Needs to Do

Key Responsibilities:

• Bidding / Client Liaison / Project Delivery
  • Ensure all VFX show deliverables are determined, built into the contracted schedule and delivered on time
  • Liaise directly with the client to ensure work is progressing as per contracted
    
  • schedule and manage all change orders
    
  • Generate payment and key milestone schedules
  • Manage client expectations
• Budget
  
  • Manage the contracted VFX budget for a feature film project
  • Monitor overall Bid vs Actuals
• Reports
  • Provide weekly cost and schedule reports to Executive VFX Producer and Head of Production
• Tracking:
  • Track all turnovers, assets, shots, finals, editorial updates, marketing requests and change orders
• Internal Communications & Reporting
  • Manage internal communication between the VFX Supervisors, Leads, Heads of
    Departments and Show Production; and anticipate and communicate issues in order to resolve problems quickly
  • Maintain weekly internal client status reports
• Scheduling / Resource Management:
  • Maintain oversight of Production Manager’s schedule according to the scope of VFX work required on the show
  • Ensure scheduled targets are being hit; and, if not, troubleshoot and resolve any scheduling conflicts, issues or delays
  • Forecast resource requirements with the VFX Production Manager, VFX Supervisor and Resource Manager to plan an effective and efficient approach to completing the show within contractually agreed deadlines.
• Manage Show Production Team
  • Set up and maintain best-practice methodology typical of a television VFX pipeline; including client relations, internal communications, scheduling, budgeting, database maintenance, reporting and tracking.
• Above and Beyond:
  • Positive, upbeat and professional
    
  • Pro-active and solution-orientated

Needs to know and have

Essential Skills:

• Good flair for dealing with clients – knows the right tone and urgency without leading to misunderstandings
• Highly organised and detail-oriented; with first-class time/project management skills
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills
• The ability to remain calm and confident in a fast-paced environment
• Capable of motivating and leading teams on various projects with confidence and clarity
• Lateral thinking skills
• Proficient in production database tools e.g. Shotgun

Essential Experience:

• Proven experience with VFX workflows, pipelines and turnarounds
• A minimum of 2 years of experience at a VFX Line Producer level or in a similar senior production role at a VFX facility
• An in-depth understanding of live-action and CG based VFX workflows, pipeline and schedule
• Proven track record of client-facing project management and scheduling
• Responsible for the efficient running of a show through all departments within budget and to contracted deadlines.

Needs to:

• Bid the Show
  
• Forecast resources for the show using inhouse Forecasting Tools.
  
• Schedule & plan resource requirements with the Executive VFX Producer, VFX Supervisor & Head of Production
  
• Provide weekly cost and schedule reports to Executive VFX Producer and Head of Production
  
• Ensure the VFX team understands the goals and deadlines for assets, shots, sequences and any R&D projects required.
  
• Ensure scheduled targets are being met by troubleshooting and resolving any scheduling conflicts, issues or delays.
  
• Track turnovers and ensure we are tracking to contract and budget.
  
• Track editorial updates & changes ensuring the production database is current and aligned with change orders.
  
• Track client change orders and ensure the VFX team are aware of budget changes approved to progress.
  
• Ensure the production team is running efficiently by attending reviews, rounds & meetings.
  
• Arrange and/or attend senior VFX Supervisor reviews & Director reviews.
  
• Ensure artist schedules are being managed efficiently.
  
• Approve requested overtime as necessary. Ensure the Production team are managing the amount of overtime pre-approved.
  
• Approve artist timesheets and leave

Requirements are:

• A minimum of 5 years experience as a Producer in Feature Film VFX.
  
• Proven experience successfully Producing large projects within a facility.
  
• Onset experience preferred.
  
• Excellent knowledge of database systems (preferably Filemaker), Excel & Word.
  
• Proven experience managing artists and working with clients.
  
• Organized and methodical in approach to work.
  
• Clear planning with artists, supervisors & clients.
  
• Capable of motivating and leading teams with enthusiasm.
  
• Able to troubleshoot & solve problems.
  
• Calm and personable under pressure and when working to tight deadlines.

If this sounds like you, we would love to hear from you!

We’re looking for an experienced project manager to join a highly technical R&D team. You will work with our head of department to create simulation tools to be used by our artists on upcoming films, implementing a programme of work that mixes blue sky research with tool development and support. Your growing team of 15 primarily work from our facility in Wellington, but include a few working remotely from locations around the world.

Ideally you’ll have experience managing research projects in the visual effects industry, but we are also interested in meeting people with other backgrounds. You'll have the ability to participate in discussions with a highly technical team and field technical requests from other departments around the facility.

Your project management style will be shaped by your experience running Agile projects, and you’ll be a pragmatic implementer, making sure that the methodology you define works for your team and customers. You can set expectations and manage shifting priorities with ease, while keeping everyone engaged and informed.

You'll be working with a talented team of researchers and software engineers to build industry-leading tools in a friendly and supportive environment.

Responsibilities

Work in partnership with the head of department and other stakeholders to;

• define, develop, execute and iterate a project management methodology appropriate for the department
• define, monitor and prioritise a programme of work for the department, aligned with the goals of the studio and the requirements of other departments. This programme of work may include inputs from internal stakeholders as well as from other departments
• regularly groom and re-prioritise backlogs
• monitor and manage scope, cost and time to deliver successful projects
• conduct project post-mortems for both internal and external review
• develop business cases for projects and drive them through the acceptance process
• regularly report on project progress, success & deviations to stakeholders as required
• monitor and maintain the wellbeing of the team
• facilitate performance reviews, providing leadership and mentoring as required
• work with other project managers to improve project management practices throughout the studio

Required Skills

• A flexible, pragmatic approach to project management
• Good understanding of software development methods
• Ability and willingness to quickly grasp complex technical issues
• Ability to provide leadership to teams
• Great communication and people skills

Desirable Skills

• Experience in VFX, film or video game production, or in computer graphics
• Experience in an Agile project management methodology
• A degree in Information Systems or similar, or qualifications in Project Management (such as Prince2, PMP)
• Familiarity with tools in use at Weta such as JIRA
• Software development experience

The Rendering department at Weta Digital is seeking a Senior Rendering Engineer who will work closely with CG supervisors to develop practical rendering solutions to challenges posed by complex visual effects shots. A thorough understanding of a wide range of rendering technologies is required, such as light transport, importance sampling, shading, etc. The ideal candidate will have extensive software engineering expertise, preferably in rendering or VFX pipeline tools, as well as hands-on experience in visual effects or animated feature production as a lighting or shading TD or in a similar role.

Responsibilities

• Develop new rendering technology to help deliver complex visual effects shots.
• Advise users on rendering strategies and best practices, and provide hands-on support and practical solutions in a fast-paced production environment.
• Forge relationships with CG supervisors and others to identify new rendering requirements and improve coordination between departments.
• Work with pipeline engineers to deploy new renderer functionality to end users.
• Analyze and optimize rendering bottlenecks and scalability issues arising in production.
• Implement new features with a focus on high performance, multi threading, scalability, and robustness.
• Improve and maintain existing code to improve quality, reliability, and maintainability.
• Find and fix bugs. Proactively test new and existing features to ensure the highest levels of quality.

Requirements:

• 3-5 years of industry software engineering experience in C++.
• 3-5 years of hands-on experience in visual effects or animated feature production as a lighting or shading TD or in a similar role.
• A thorough understanding of rendering technologies, including path tracing, shading, geometry processing, etc.
• Good familiarity with industry practices in building and rendering VFX shots.

Desirable qualifications and skills:

• A degree in Computer Science.
• Development experience on a production quality renderer.
• Experience developing plugins for various VFX systems (e.g. Katana, Maya, Houdini, Nuke)
• Python programming experience
• Comfortable in a Linux development environment.

Weta Digital is taking expressions of interest for Creature TDs to join its award winning team for roles opening up later in 2018.

Applicants should be experienced and passionate about building photo-realistic creatures. They should have broad anatomical knowledge and be well versed in creation, rigging and simulation of skeletons, muscles, and skin.

A Creature TD is responsible for building, rigging and simulating the internal anatomy of a creature, in order to drive the final deformation of the skin. Also responsible for defining animation controls and rigging puppets to be used by animation and other departments.

Creature TDs work closely with various departments, especially modelling, animation, and shots. They work alongside the Creature Cloth/Hair TDs to deliver dynamic, realistic creatures.

Strong scripting and debugging skills are a must.

• 5 years or more as a full time senior creature TD on feature films
  
• Experience with skinning and deformation of photo realistic characters and/or creatures
  
• Poweruser in Maya
  
• Poweruser in Python scripting
  
• Linux experience
  
• Experience in Cloth and Hair simulation a plus
  
• Python, Perl, and C++ knowledge a plus.
  
• Must be able to work well in a team environment
  
• Must be willing to relocate to New Zealand

Do you have a keen vision for data flow, intuitive API design, and clear UX? Are you motivated to use big-picture insight as a platform for top-quality code? In your visual effects or gaming career have you experienced the difference end-to-end thinking makes?

Production Engineering is responsible for continuously improving how Weta Digital's artists collaborate to create movies. If you have a robust suite of VFX software skills and a passion for seamless, intelligent design of multi-faceted tools and pipelines, we have the challenges and environment for you to thrive! Multi-tier servers with multi-language APIs; desktop GUIs; full-stack web; application integration; image transformation and interaction are some of our specialities.

We seek a collaborative, clever thinker with the following skills:

• Top-grade, expert-level Python, with complementary experience in C++, Java, or Go
• Skilled GUI development in Qt or the web (particularly AngularJS)
• Command of database interaction (particularly PostgreSQL and Elasticsearch)
• Basic understanding of Maya, Houdini, Nuke, Katana, or Shotgun
• Comfortable working in Linux
• Delight in a fast paced, constantly evolving workplace

If this sounds like you – we would LOVE to hear from you!

Production Engineering is responsible for the development of libraries and supporting tools which facilitate the creation and manipulation of scene data. This involves high-performance, in-memory scene representations for real- time and offline rendering, and interactive non-destructive manipulation. We embed this functionality in 3rd party applications as well as exposing it via C++ and Python APIs.

The idea applicant will have ...

• 5+ years of professional experience as a C++ developer
• Expertise with APIs such as Boost, STL, Qt, CLANG, Unreal or Unity
• Expertise with multi-threaded development and performance optimization
• Experience writing performance sensitive APIs for use by other developers
• Interest in topics like C++ implementations, compilers, and memory allocation strategies

Either of the below would be advantageous ...

• Experience in the VFX or gaming industry
• Experience with application APIs such as Maya, MotionBuilder and Houdini

If this sounds like you – we would LOVE to hear from you!

Weta Digital is seeking a Machine Learning Researcher to join the Look-Dev R&D department.

Our mission:

• To create and support all the tools used for Look Development within the company, including texturing, material authoring, shading surfacing, appearance modelling
  
• Conduct research in appearance-related problems, such as material models, material filtering, material measurement, texture creation, for the purposes of improving quality and efficiency of Look Development.
  

The ideal candidate will have proven research contributions in machine learning, as well as software engineering experience. Internship and junior positions are also available for this role.

Responsibilities:

• Survey and monitor the existing state of the art and of the competition.
• Participate in the research of new and practical Machine Learning-based solutions for Look Development problems, such as texture synthesis, semantic segmentation, inpainting, material measurement, etc.
• Participate in the dissemination of scientific knowledge within and outside the company.
• Participate in the implementation of new ideas into practical production tools.

Required Qualifications:

• Graduate-level (MSc or PhD) education or equivalent experience.
• Good knowledge of machine learning research and tools (TensorFlow, pyTorch, etc).
• Fundamental understanding of the scientific process.
• Ability to read, understand, and discuss scientific papers.
• Ability to think creatively and formalize when faced with a problem.
• Ability to understand the practical considerations of research applied to a production environment.
• Good communication skills and English language fluency.

Desirable Qualifications:

• Previous experience in machine learning research in the VFX industry
• Good software engineering skills.
• Proficiency in C++ and Python.

Weta Digital is hiring Pipeline TDs for the Shots R&D department to help build production pipeline tools and workflows within the FX domain. The Shots R&D department provides production tools and work flows for the FX, Lighting, Comp and Matte Painting departments, and solutions that interconnect these departments with other groups in the company.

This is a highly technical position, and would suit a candidate with well developed technical skills and a genuine interest in problem solving. The role requires interaction with artists as well as software engineers and other pipeline groups within the facility. Therefore good communication skills and a willingness to work on multiple varied tasks are essential.

Most importantly, the candidate must be motivated and interested in the opportunity to learn new systems and concepts and be willing and able to adapt to the changing needs of feature film production.

Required skills

• Creating innovative and robust production pipeline development and workflow solutions.
• Degree in Computer Graphics, Computer Science, Engineering, Mathematics, Physics or equivalent work experience.
• Extensive knowledge of Python, broad experience with other programming languages a plus.
• Experience working in an FX department or directly with FX artists.
• Experience with source control systems such as SVN/git
• Knowledge of and experience using Linux environment
• Experience with simulation software for visual effects.
• Strong interpersonal communication and teamwork skills.
• Strong time management skills.
• Strong problem solving skills.

Preferred Skills

• Previous experience as an FX artist.
• Team leadership experience.
• Experience with QT and UX design.
• Experience with Maya and Houdini APIs
• Strong technical understanding of shading, lighting and rendering.

If this sounds like you, we would love to hear from you!

Weta Digital is accepting Expressions of Interest for Shader TD roles.

Candidates will ideally have at least 3 years of feature film experience and display the following attributes:

Essential skills:

• Experience in shading and look developing for photo-realistic feature films.
  
• Strong LookDev skills (both artistically and technically), with an excellent understanding of physically based shading & rendering.
  
• Ability to come up with creative, efficient rendering solutions for a wide variety of assets
  
• Ability to manage multiple assets at the same time, and put them seamlessly together in a visually coherent solution
  
• Familiarity with Maya and Linux.
  
• Experience with all aspects of the rendering pipeline.
  
• Strong communication, task management and organisational skills.
  
• Ability to implement both technical and artistic solutions in order to efficiently handle complexity

Preferential skills:

• Experience leading teams or small groups of artists
  
• Knowledge of Python scripting
  
• Shader writing experience

Within the Shaders Department at Weta, the work we undertake requires areas of specialised experience and focus; for example Environments, Materials, Characters & FX. Whilst we are looking for people with capabilities in all areas, we're also very interested in talking to Artists who have specific experience in one or more of these areas.

The Rendering Research Group at Weta Digital is seeking a Rendering Researcher to take a leading role in the development of rendering technology at Weta Digital. A deep understanding of a wide range of rendering technologies is required, such as light transport, importance sampling, volume rendering, realistic material models, shading, and geometry processing. The ideal candidate will have extensive software engineering expertise, proven research contributions, and project leadership experience.

Responsibilities

• Research and develop new rendering algorithms, such as light transport (path tracing with importance sampling), volume rendering, etc.
  
• Design and implement physically realistic material models for hair, skin, and other materials using multi-layer BSDFs, importance sampling, and subsurface scattering.
  
• Adapt the latest research results into practical, production-quality code.
  
• Implement core rendering systems with a focus on high performance, multi threading, scalability, and robustness.
  
• Analyse and optimize system performance.
  
• Improve and maintain existing code to improve quality, reliability, and maintainability.
  
• Proactively test new and existing features to ensure the highest levels of quality.
  
• Provide hands-on user support. Find and fix bugs. Author high quality internal and end-user documentation.
  
• Share senior project leadership responsibilities, such as planning and tracking development tasks, engaging with users, and collaborating with other departments.

Required Qualifications

• Masters or Ph.D. in Computer Science or related field
  
• 3+ years of relevant software engineering experience.
  
• World-class rendering research expertise.
  
• A solid foundation in software engineering, including object-oriented programming.
  
• Fluency in C++ and experience with other languages such as Python.
  
• Extensive experience in performance analysis and optimization of highly parallel, scalable systems.
  
• Ability to work well on a self-directed team in a rapidly changing, deadline-oriented environment.
  
• A team-oriented, customer-focused mindset.

Desirable Qualifications

• Extensive research and/or experience in either volumetrics rendering or materials
  
• GPU programming expertise (CUDA or OpenCL) and experience with interactive rendering algorithms.
  
• Experience in film or video game production.
  
• Familiarity with Linux and programming tools such as Valgrind, Vtune, git, and so on

About Weta Digital

Weta Digital is an Academy Award winning visual effects company based in Wellington, New Zealand that created the visual effects for movies such as The Lord of the Rings trilogy, King Kong, Avatar, The Adventures of Tintin, The Hobbit trilogy, and many others. The studio has won 5 Academy Awards for best achievement in Visual Effects, and continues to show industry leadership by starting or incubating multiple successful software products such as Manuka, Massive, Mudbox and Mari.

If this sounds like you