Pipeline Technical Director
Location: Santa Clara Valley, CA
Job Type: contract
Company: The Select Group
Job Description Apply Now
Pipeline Technical DirectorLocation: Hybrid in Seattle, WA, Santa Clara, CA, or San Jose, CA (Onsite Tue–Thu)
Employment Type: W2 only – no C2C or sponsorship
Duration: 12+ Months (Strong potential to extend)
About the Project:
Join a cutting-edge team focused on advancing Synthetic Data, Computer Vision, and Machine Learning initiatives for next-generation products. This group builds high-fidelity 3D synthetic data pipelines that support large-scale ML experimentation and drive innovation in visual computing. The ideal candidate thrives in fast-paced, highly collaborative environments and enjoys shaping both immediate workflow solutions and long-term technical direction.
Key Responsibilities:
- Develop, maintain, and scale 3D content pipelines supporting artists, ML researchers, and engineering teams.
- Build automation tools in Python to streamline asset conversions, generate procedural variations, and optimize data production workflows.
- Write tools and plugins for Maya, Houdini, or Blender to support asset creation, processing, and validation.
- Support migrations between render engines by converting shading networks, identifying unsupported features, and validating visual fidelity.
- Debug and optimize cloud compute jobs, distributed processing workflows, and rendering pipelines.
- Build automated systems to generate and validate 3D assets, textures, metadata, and scene configurations at scale.
- Conduct visual QA and shader compatibility checks to ensure production-quality outputs.
- Collaborate closely with 3D artists, ML teams, and DevOps to translate data-generation requirements into efficient production systems.
- Mentor junior developers, maintain documentation, and lead small cross-functional technical initiatives.
- Submit and monitor large-scale cloud processing jobs, analyze logs, handle errors, and perform programmatic and visual output validation.
- Communicate progress, blockers, and results to technical leadership and partner teams.
- 4+ years of experience in VFX, AAA game development, or synthetic data pipelines.
- 4+ years of production-level Python development, including work with DCC APIs, boto3, pandas, numpy, and concurrent programming patterns.
- Strong proficiency with Autodesk Maya, Houdini, or Blender.
- Skilled in debugging cloud compute environments and distributed job systems.
- Experience developing large-scale automation tools for 3D assets and metadata.
- Ability to diagnose shader issues and conduct comprehensive visual QA.
- Experience with offline render engines such as V-Ray or Cycles.
- Familiarity with emerging ML technologies (LLMs, VLMs, GenAI, ComfyUI).
- Ability to adapt quickly to changing technical requirements.
- Bachelor’s or Master’s in Computer Science, Computer Graphics, Visual Effects, Game Development, or equivalent experience.
- Understanding of CI/CD workflows.
- Experience with procedural 3D asset and scene generation.
- Familiarity with node-based workflows.
- Exposure to computer vision methods for image analysis.
- Experience with synthetic datasets for machine learning and computer vision.
- Self-directed, proactive, and comfortable working within existing pipelines.
- Experience working in Agile development environments.
You enjoy bridging art, engineering, and ML workflows. You’re comfortable owning complex pipeline systems end-to-end, supporting artists while enabling scalable data generation. You thrive on solving technical challenges and building high-quality automated production systems used by multidisciplinary teams.
TSG is an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability, or status as a protected veteran.
#LI-AL3
74386