Lead Software Developer, Ziva Realtime

We are looking for an experienced software developer to lead our Ziva Realtime team. Ziva character tools bring cutting-edge techniques and workflows to professional 3D character artists, empowering them to create realistic and dynamic animated performances. Ziva Realtime is our technology suite that brings these world-leading characters into games, VR, and other interactive environments. We use a combination of highly-optimized low-level code, GPU compute, machine learning, and clever data compression to make film-quality characters possible in real-time. The product suite includes custom character creation and conversion tools used by 3D artists and character riggers, as well as runtime plugins for Maya, Unreal, and Unity. Our tools are used in AAA game productions, as well as top-level animation work for film and TV. Our goal is to continue pushing the state-of-the-art in real-time characters to even greater heights, and we need a strong Lead Developer to be a driving force behind that push.

As Lead Software Developer, you will drive the success of the Ziva Realtime software suite, including both the character creation toolset and game engine middleware. You will report to the Director of Ziva Character Tools, and collaborate directly with other team leads within Ziva and across DNEG. In partnership with key stakeholders and users, you will help set the direction, priorities, and roadmap for the Ziva Realtime software, and be accountable for successfully delivering the agreed-upon milestones. You will guide and coordinate the work of the Ziva Realtime development team, ensuring high velocity and quality of the software being produced. You will identify opportunities for high-impact contributions, for example from published research or user feedback, and steer them all the way from experimental prototypes to robust features of stable production software. In collaboration with your team, you will continuously improve the speed and memory consumption of the runtime, maintain high-quality integrations into game engines like Unreal and 3D DCCs like Maya, and improve the experience of artists using the creation and conversion tools.