Houdini Technical Director

Why join Swaybox Studios? Swaybox Studios is rewriting the rulebook of visual storytelling. As we collaborate with DC Studios/ Warner Bros Pictures Animation and Matt Reeves’ 6th and Idaho on a revolutionary new project, you’ll help bring bold creative visions to life through hands-on artistry and performance. This is your chance to be a part of a production that’s equal parts innovative and unforgettable. Houdini Technical Director Location: New Orleans, LA - Onsite Studio: Swaybox Studios Department: VFX / Technical Direction Reports To: VFX Supervisor Employment Type: Full Time Why join Swaybox Studios? At Swaybox Studios is rewriting the rulebook of visual storytelling. As we collaborate with DC Studios/ Warner Bros Pictures Animation and Matt Reeves’ 6th and Idaho on a revolutionary new project, you’ll play a vital role in coordinating the artistry and logistics that bring bold visions to life. This is your chance to help lead a production that’s equal parts innovative and unforgettable. Job Summary: Swaybox Studios is seeking an experienced Houdini Technical Director to develop, implement, and maintain tools, procedures, and workflows that optimize our Houdini pipeline across VFX, Animation, Unreal, and Technical Direction teams. Working closely with artists, supervisors, and pipeline developers, you'll create intuitive procedural tools that automate repetitive tasks, improve production efficiency, and solve complex technical challenges. You'll play a critical role in ensuring our artists have reliable, scalable workflows, while helping evolve the studio's overall pipeline architecture to support a hybrid production environment. This role leans heavily into the technical side, but relies on the creative understanding for the needs of the artists. It’s ideal for someone who enjoys solving difficult technical problems, building artist-friendly tools, node graphs, HDA structures, VEX expressions, and collaborating across departments to continually improve how work gets done. Key Responsibilities: Develop, maintain, and optimize custom Houdini Digital Assets (HDAs), procedural tools, scripts, and workflows that improve artist efficiency and uphold pipeline best practices. Design scalable procedural systems that support simulation, environments, asset generation, geometry processing, lighting, and other production workflows. Develop and maintain non-destructive scene-graph pipelines and create custom operators for the artists to work from. Implement and maintain naming conventions, asset organization standards, version control practices, and pipeline integrations that align with the studio's production infrastructure. Troubleshoot and resolve technical issues related to Houdini tools, simulations, procedural networks, asset processing, caching, lighting, rendering, and pipeline integration, serving as a primary technical resource for artists. Automate manual production tasks through Python, VEX, and Houdini's procedural framework to improve consistency, efficiency, and reliability. Balance immediate production support with long-term pipeline development, prioritizing critical production needs, while continuing to improve studio workflows. Collaborate closely with Supervisors, Pipeline TDs, Production, and artists to identify workflow challenges and develop practical technical solutions. Create and maintain technical documentation, user guides, training materials, and onboarding resources that encourage successful adoption of new tools and workflows. Continuously evaluate production workflows, artist feedback, and emerging technologies to recommend improvements that enhance efficiency and creative flexibility. Partner with Pipeline, Unreal, Maya, and Nuke Technical Directors to ensure smooth interoperability between applications and maintain a cohesive production pipeline. Collaborate with Pipeline TDs and Render Wranglers to integrate Houdini and Arnold with Deadline in-house and via cloud-based rendering. Use ShotGrid (Flow…