Technical Director - Inkubator Job at Netflix in Los Angeles

Technical Director - Inkubator

Los Angeles, California, United States of America Los Gatos, California, United States of America

At Netflix, our mission is to entertain the world. Together, we partner with creators as they experiment with a range of cutting-edge tools that bridge innovation with imaginative storytelling. Come join Inkubator to shape what's next and explore the creative possibilities.

Position Summary

We are seeking Technical Directors to join our pioneering team creating animated shorts and specials using experimental, creative-led, GenAI-native production pipelines. Working alongside artists and productions, this role will help support show-specific workflow and technical needs as we aim to develop feature-quality content in a creator-led environment.

What You'll Do

• Work on productions alongside artists to support show-specific workflow and technical needs.
• Strategize with artists to develop workflows that meet a particular show's creative requirements. Where emerging tools fall short of meeting creative requirements, provide hybrid workflow solutions that integrate established 3D workflows and DCCs.
• Provide critical workflow and tool support to artists. Document and regularly update onboarding and training materials for artists.
• Provide beta test feedback to the engineering org for new internal infrastructure or integration tooling. Provide testing feedback to artists and craft experts on new releases of external tooling. Ensure a stable and current production software environment for the artists.
• Working with artist and craft experts, identify model fine-tuning opportunities and data requirements. Create custom fine-tuning for a show utilizing internal and external tooling.
• Proactively monitor artist pain points in daily reviews or dailies and iterate on tools and processes to remove friction.
• Support and troubleshoot the handoff of data between artists and editorial.
• Support the use of Production Tracking systems on a show and ensure it meets the particular needs of a show.
• Evaluate and document the impact of new external tool releases on existing workflows, and communicate recommended adoption plans to artists and leads.
• Identify standardization opportunities for engineering and encourage adoption in a particular show.
• Monitor performance and reliability of compute resources during production and flag or mitigate bottlenecks impacting artist productivity.
• In collaboration with studio engineering and Netflix infrastructure teams, help identify a show's distributed compute and workstation requirements. As needed, develop, deploy, and support last-mile software integration solutions for artists on a particular show.
• As needed, create and deliver final material for a production.

What You Need

• Working knowledge of both commercial and open source generative and traditional CG tools and workflows (eg ComfyUI).
• Demonstrated ability to stay current with the highly dynamic and changing landscape of tools.
• Ability to synthesize creative requirements from artists and craft experts into practical workflows using both emerging and established tools.
• Familiarity with modern and emerging software development technologies and the ability to rapidly prototype and deploy solutions that meet a show's requirements.
• Excellent communication skills and ability to translate evolving technical concepts to both artist and production leadership.
• Expertise in maintaining artist working environments that balance rapid deployment of new tools and security requirements.