Looking for work?

Since there seem to be a number of people on this board who are unemployed, I'll toss this up here. The catch is that you'd have to move to LA, and chances run at about 99% that it'll be me doing any code reviews. Verbatim email from our HR person, sent today:

Pipeline Programmer

Work within the Pipeline group to architect and develop production tools and
supporting modules in a scripting language environment. Projects include
studio-wide and production-specific tool development, as well as continued
development of the core pipeline support modules and sub-systems.

The Pipeline Programmer will report to the Pipeline Lead and the department
manager.

Requirements:

• BS/MS in Computer Science or equivalent
  
• 2+ years experience in software development
  
• 2+ years Perl scripting experience
  
• Excellent verbal, written, and interpersonal skills
  
• Excellent documentation skills
  
• Object-oriented software design
  
• C, C++ or Java programming useful
  
• Excellent Unix skills
  
• Knowledge of relational database design and implementation
  
• Familiarity with 3D/2D applications
  
• Computer animation and/or visual effects industry experience helpful
  

PM me if you're interested, and I can send you more details, and put in a good word. The company is booming at the moment, and the position being offered is a permanent staff position. The department has gone from 5 to 14 since I started.

erm what is a pipeline programmer to me a pipeline is something made of metal that is going to leakatsomepoint dependant on what nasty am pumpng throught it

That's pretty much a good analogy for it.

Our company has several different departments that data gets shifted around between. For example, models get built by the modelling department. Those get used by the tracking department. Then, what the trackers use gets sent off to the animation department, who also imports stuff from the character rigging department. All that goes off to the effects, or lighting, who then render. The renders go off to the compositors who assemble all the bit pictures into one final pretty image, which then goes off to be recorded onto film. The point of the pipeline department is to make sure that process is as smooth and painless as possible by writing scripts that munge data from one form into another (because half of what we do doesn't use the same software as the other half), or writing code to keep track of where assets are being used, or what stage a shot is in, and things like that. Inevitably leaks spring up, which we either try to patch, or invent a whole new process from scratch that's (theoretically) more robust. So a pipeline programmer is a person that helps write software tools, or parts of those tools that the department needs to do all the above.

Does that explain it well enough?