Senior Director Software Engineering

Who are we hiring? 

Sphere is seeking a Senior Director of Software Engineering to lead the technology efforts of the Visualization Technology (VisTech) team. The team is responsible for due diligence, prototyping, and development of collaboration, visualization, capture, and dailies tools for shooting and reviewing content across our venues. This role requires a strong understanding of the VisTech software stack and systems architecture, along with the ability to clearly communicate technical strategy and set the standard for engineering excellence and delivery.  

Managing multiple projects in parallel from conception through execution, this position will focus on production-ready technologies and workflows, including real-time graphics, backend and API integration, desktop, mobile, and XR devices, tool and plugin creation, and pipeline integration. As a senior leader within the Software Engineering organization, this individual will lead a sizable team, establish product roadmaps in partnership with business stakeholders, and ensure projects are delivered on time, on scope, and on budget. 

 What will you do?  

• In partnership with other Engineering leadership and business stakeholders, develop and lead roadmap work on a family of simulation and visualization software products and related infrastructure, including both planned deployments and related test cases with research & development.  

• In partnership with creative teams, bring technical definition to concepts through iterative assessment and discussion.  

• With developers and project managers, translate full concepts delivered by creative teams into use cases and feature sets that will inform software design and product strategy.  

• Lead and manage a team of engineers, local and remote, by setting goals, ensuring time and resources are properly allocated, mentoring, and establishing working methodologies.  

• Lead the design of software architecture and plan technical solutions across many simulation and visualization tools to ensure we have a scalable technology platform on which artists can plan, conceptualize, and visualize content for our venues.  

• Define iterative development of custom VR/XR, Mobile, and Desktop software, tools, and plugins to integrate into our previz / capture and dailies pipelines.  

• Coordinate with Product and Project Management to estimate, break down, plan, and report on work of team for Agile sprints to ensure that high quality software is deployed and released consistently.  

• Collaborate closely with Productions and other departments to implement appropriate solutions for their needs and create integrations of our custom tools into their pipelines.  

• Work closely with related teams to integrate and test our tools on various hardware configurations.  

• Manage technical documentation team to clearly communicate complex solutions and challenges, even to non-technical staff.  

• Stay current on relevant technology and conduct necessary research, due diligence, proto-typing, and testing to assess emerging technology options 

 What do you need to succeed?  

• 12+ years professional software engineering or related field experience required.  

• Extensive domain knowledge and experience creating artist tools in production pipelines for content creation is required.  

• Expertise in C# and the Unity game engine is required; additional C++/Unreal engine knowledge is a plus. 

• Extensive working knowledge of securely integrating external APIs and implementing net-worked applications is required.  

• Extensive experience with VR HMDs is required (Steam VR, Windows Mixed Reality, Oculus, etc.).  

• Extensive experience with Mobile/XR devices is required (iOS, Android, HoloLens, Magic Leap, etc.).  

• Strong communicator; able to use language to accurately convey information to and from non-technical staff.  

• Experience managing projects including backend cloud providers is a plus (AWS, Azure, Google Cloud).  

• Experience leading large teams, establishing goals, strategies, and tactics for the team, and managing budgets.  

 Special Requirements 

• Travel to Las Vegas, Burbank and other locations as deemed necessary 

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