Senior 3D Generalist, Product Visualization (Contract)

Skydio is the leading US drone company and the world leader in autonomous flight, the key technology for the future of drones and aerial mobility. The Skydio team combines deep expertise in artificial intelligence, best-in-class hardware and software product development, operational excellence, and customer obsession to empower a broader, more diverse audience of drone users, from utility inspectors https://www.skydio.com/solutions/energy-and-utilities to first responders https://www.skydio.com/solutions/public-safety, soldiers in battlefield scenarios https://www.skydio.com/solutions/national-security/tactical-isr, and beyond https://www.skydio.com/solutions. ABOUT THE ROLE: Skydio is looking for a highly skilled Senior 3D Generalist to join our Brand Creative team for a full-time, three-month contract. This role will support the development of product imagery, illustrations, animations, and interactive 3D assets for our annual user conference keynote and other high-priority brand and product-launch initiatives. You will report to the Senior 3D Art Director and Creative Director and collaborate closely with designers, animators, product marketers, engineers, and other cross-functional partners. This is a hands-on production role for someone who can take projects from prepared product CAD through final, polished visual deliverables. You should be equally comfortable cleaning and preparing complex product geometry, building physically accurate materials, lighting photorealistic scenes, animating product features, compositing final imagery, and optimizing assets for real-time web experiences. - Employment Type: Full-time, 3-month contract - Work Authorization: We welcome every qualified candidate who is eligible to work in The United States to apply. However, at this time, Skydio does not currently offer employment-based work permits or visa sponsorship for this role. - Location: U.S. Remote or hybrid/onsite at our HQ in San Mateo, California. WHAT YOU'LL DO: - Create highly photorealistic product renderings, illustrations, and animations for keynote presentations, product launches, marketing campaigns, web experiences, decks, manuals, and other brand communications. - Work from engineering and industrial-design CAD models to create production-ready visualization assets in Blender. - Prepare complex CAD-derived geometry through tessellation, topology cleanup, normal correction, mesh organization, material separation, UV creation, and scene optimization. - Preserve the accuracy, construction, proportions, materials, and fit and finish of Skydio hardware throughout the visualization process. - Build realistic, physically based materials using Blender and Adobe Substance 3D Painter. - Create studio-quality lighting that accurately communicates product form, surface finish, scale, and industrial-design details. - Produce both clean studio imagery and environmental or conceptual scenes showing Skydio products in use. - Create product animations that demonstrate assembly, operation, movement, workflows, features, and product interactions. - Composite and finish rendered imagery primarily in Adobe Photoshop, with occasional motion graphics and compositing work in Adobe After Effects. - Adapt product assets for multiple output formats, resolutions, aspect ratios, and campaign needs. - Prepare optimized real-time 3D assets for interactive product viewers, web experiences, and augmented-reality applications. - Export and validate assets in formats such as glTF and GLB for implementation in three.js and related browser-based experiences. - Optimize real-time assets through efficient topology, UV layouts, texture atlases, baked maps, level-of-detail strategies, texture compression, and thoughtful polygon and material budgets. - Maintain organized scenes, materials, textures, naming conventions, and file structures that can be shared and reused across the broader creative team. - Collaborate closely with creative leadership, incorporate fee…