Performance Oriented, Sr. C++ Engineer

As a Performance Oriented, Sr. C++ Engineer at Rive, your primary responsibilities will include owning and architecting the core animation runtime, collaborating with top-notch designers to develop innovative features, and enhancing the performance of our systems. You'll be focused on utilizing C++ optimizations, threading, and sophisticated mathematics to ensure our rendering of state-driven animations remains top-notch, all while contributing to CI workflows on GitHub.

To be a strong candidate for the Performance Oriented, Sr. C++ Engineer role at Rive, you should have at least 5 years of professional C++ programming experience, a proven ability to understand and contribute to complex codebases, and a passion for mathematics—particularly areas related to Bézier curves. You should also be familiar with vector instruction sets and possess experience in automation and development tooling, especially GitHub CI.

As a Performance Oriented, Sr. C++ Engineer at Rive, you can expect a flexible remote work environment with an emphasis on overlapping hours centered around U.S. Pacific time. Our team thrives in a diverse and inclusive culture where collaboration and transparency are key. You will also have opportunities to engage with the team in-person at our San Francisco office, enhancing our creative synergy.

At Rive, performance optimization is a core focus for the Performance Oriented, Sr. C++ Engineer. You will work on various aspects of optimization including C++ code enhancements, SIMD usage, threading strategies, and implementing clever mathematical formulas. Continuous thinking about performance aspects ensures that the core animation runtime is both fast and efficient, facilitating seamless user experiences.

In the role of Performance Oriented, Sr. C++ Engineer at Rive, you will work on groundbreaking projects that involve creating a new general-purpose graphics format and enhancing interactive content creation. Your work will significantly impact projects for tech giants, game studios, and consumer apps. You'll be directly influencing how teams iterate faster and build better products through your contributions to Rive's animation engine.

When answering this question, focus on specific examples that demonstrate your understanding of performance optimization techniques, such as using SIMD instructions, threading, and memory management strategies. Discuss projects where you successfully improved performance metrics and the tools you utilized to analyze and test these optimizations.

In responding to this question, it’s valuable to outline a project where you played a key role in shaping the architecture. Talk about your contributions, decisions made during the architecture process, and the impact those decisions had on the overall project success, particularly in terms of code maintainability and scalability.

To effectively answer, illustrate your familiarity with Bézier curves by discussing any relevant projects where you implemented or optimized algorithms using these mathematical concepts. Explain the significance of linear algebra and calculus in your work and how they have contributed to your understanding of graphics programming.

When discussing CI workflows, focus on the specific tools and frameworks you've used, and detail a situation where you set up or improved a CI/CD pipeline. Highlight how this contributed to team productivity and code quality, and any challenges you overcame in the implementation process.

Discuss the specific vector instruction sets you’ve worked with, such as AVX, SSE, or NEON, and describe at least one project where you implemented these in performance-critical situations. Elaborate on how using these instruction sets impacted the efficiency of your applications.

To address this question, explain strategies you've employed to avoid issues like floating point precision errors, normalization techniques, and the importance of robust algorithms in your programming. Provide examples where your focus on numerical stability delivered reliable results.

Use this question to demonstrate your ability to adapt and learn. Share a situation where you had to familiarize yourself with a new technology—how you approached learning it, any resources you utilized, and the outcome. Emphasize your proactive mindset and problem-solving capabilities.

Discuss challenges typical in startup settings, such as resource constraints or rapid changes in project scope. Share how you adapted your work style, collaborated with cross-functional teams, or contributed to innovative solutions to overcome these challenges.

Highlight your organizational skills and tools you use to manage tasks effectively. Describe your approach to assessing priorities based on deadlines, project significance, and team communication while ensuring that your independent work stays aligned with overall team goals.

To answer this question, reflect on Rive's mission and values. Share your alignment with their innovative approach and how your skills and experiences can contribute to their success. Discuss your enthusiasm for the company’s vision and the unique opportunity to work on cutting-edge graphics technology.