ICON Creative Studio is Canada’s largest independently owned animation entertainment company located in the historic Gastown district of Vancouver, BC Canada with design, storyboarding, modeling, rigging, animation, technical finaling, lighting, visual effects, and compositing artists alongside creative and management teams.

Known for our quality, efficiency, and timely deliveries, ICON has partnered alongside distributors, broadcasters, and streaming platforms around the world to help create, realize and produce noteworthy content.

ICON operates from a holistic philosophy that leverages individual skill sets to maximize production efficiency on the floor while maintaining an optimal balance of creativity and quality on-screen.

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Work remotely (anywhere in BC), hybrid in BC, or full-time in studio in Vancouver BC

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Why work at ICON?

At ICON we constantly invest in raising the bar of our productions and fostering our people. If you are passionate about animation and enjoy sharing success with others, we'd like to hear from you!

• Join the fastest growing CG Animation studio in Vancouver

• Work on top feature and episodic CG franchises for leading streaming platforms (Netflix, Disney+, Apple TV+, Amazon, Peacock, Paramount+ etc.)

• Work with a diverse group of artists from all over the world who have come to BC to join our expanding studio

• Use all of the latest tools and software

• We uphold a premium standard of quality across all of our productions by putting all of our resources up on screen

• We hire for the long term and give artists the opportunity to grow, get promoted and take on as much responsibility as they can manage

• We offer flexibility and autonomy

• We facilitate requests in a timely manner

• We support PR applications

• We offer direct deposit

• We offer a generous benefits package

• And more...

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Pipeline Technical Director

The purpose of the Pipeline department is to nurture an environment for the effective and efficient production of media through research, innovation, and the application of technology.

A Pipeline TD requires a general understanding of how data flows through the studio from beginning to end. Often with intimate knowledge of the operations in a particular department or area of expertise. With this knowledge, you will be expected to recognize when the pipeline is not running smoothly and make necessary adjustments.

The applicant may be expected to demonstrate their skills through a programming test or exercise.

This position will report to the Pipeline Supervisor (Head of Department).

Responsibilities:

• Provide courteous and professional technical support

• Evaluate issues and requests generated by production (tickets), implementing technical solutions as needed

• Notify supervisor of any anticipated disruptions to production schedules

• Identify and automate inefficient or redundant tasks

• Provide regular updates on current development efforts and projects

• Maintain knowledge of the workflows and processes of the studio Pipeline

• Attend regular production and departmental meetings

• Participate in code reviews and training sessions

• Maintain documentation for new and modified tools/systems

• Perform code maintenance and refactoring

• Write effective, readable and maintainable code

• Stay informed about new technologies and techniques

• Follow departmental coding standards

• Follow departmental development and deployment practices

• Abide by the ACM Code of Ethics and Professional Conduct

Required Skills:

• Willingness to understand and contemplate complex technical

• Take a proactive approach to investigation and troubleshooting issues

• Excellent written and oral communication skills

• Strong organizational skills

• Good time management

• Use of Design Patterns and SOLID programming principles

• Fluency with the Python programming language

• Good understanding of visual effects and/or animation pipelines

• Proven experience writing pipeline tools and modifying workflows

Desirable Skills

• A degree in Computer Science, Computer Graphics or related field

• Knowledge of database management and web technologies

• Experience in Pipeline, System Administration or Software Development

• Familiarity with standard software development practices

• Experience of UI and UX design using Qt libraries

• Experience with writing or maintaining REST-ful APIs

• Prior experience using:

  • Digital Content Creation (DCC) Applications:
    • Maya / Zbrush / Nuke / Houdini / MARI / Premiere / Photoshop

• MEL / PyMEL / Maya Python API (1 & 2) / Maya C++ API

• Version/Source control (Git / BitBucket / GitLab)

• Issue Tracking (YouTrack)

• Production Tracking (Shotgun)

• Farm schedulers (Deadline)

• Renderers (Arnold)

• Editing (Adobe Premiere)

• Universal Scene Description / Alembic

• Additional programming languages (C++ / Java)