Head of Cloud 3D Graphics (Ray Tracing & Asset Tech)

Geomagical Labs is building 3D experiences for tens of millions of users around the world, in partnership with IKEA. Our pioneering apps allow customers to scan photorealistic models of their spaces, then reimagine their spaces in life-like 3D, from anywhere -- changing home commerce along the way.

We have an opening for a technical, hands-on 3D Cloud Graphics tech leader.

The leader will drive an ambitious technology roadmap --- to engineer, enhance, and operate automated, cloud-based 3D conditioning and render pipelines (dataflow, batch, and on-demand) for processing & ray-tracing of PBR 3D graphics models. The role requires broad 3D graphics foundations, excellent hands-on full-stack systems engineering skills, and experience managing technical projects across geographies.

In this role, you will architect, build, coordinate, and drive major tracks of 3D Cloud Graphics innovation. You will:

• Strategically build & manage a team of 3 technical staff affiliated colleagues
• Ship best-in-industry 3D experiences for use on mobile devices, web, and in-store
• Own & operate Cloud Graphics production systems like a mission-critical business
• Drive quality and on-time delivery through automation & wise management
• Develop & run 3D asset baking & conditioning pipelines for 1,000,000 PBR LODs
• Develop full-stack tools & data pipelines to automate asset production at high scale
• Exceed 3D business KPIs (size, coverage, processing speed, features, visual quality)
• Develop high-speed, photorealistic cloud ray tracing pipelines for mass-scale use
• Use combinatorial variants to render rooms & AI ground truth training data
• Develop strategies to solve business problems & unlock new opportunities
• Push the envelope of real-time realism with enhanced materials, lighting & engines
• Build, coach, mentor, and motivate a tight-knit, ambitious, cross-continent team, building trust, camaraderie, and effectiveness between our teams in Silicon Valley, Europe, and Shanghai.

This position requires strong systems architecture and programming skills (Python/Google Cloud), broad 3D graphics foundations, advanced understanding of texture-mapping technologies & standards, experience with asset optimization (retopologizing, remeshing, texture compression, etc.), understanding of leading ray-tracing technologies and emerging neural optimizations, and some hands-on experience with 3D modeling.

Hands-on technical skills

• Degree in Computer Science or highly-related field
• Highly-productive Python systems programming skills, in a cloud environment.
• Solid theory and practice of real-time & ray-traced 3D texture-mapped graphics
• Experience with 3D asset conditioning software (e.g. Simplygon, RapidCompact)
• Experience using Blender modeling & scripting, and Cycles for ray-trace rendering
• Confident with texture-mapped materials, u-v mapping, atlassing, baking, AO
• BONUS: Experience with 3ds Max, V-Ray, RTX, Unreal Engine, a plus
• BONUS: Experience with neural, plenoptic inverse rendering a plus (NeRFs, Splats)

Leadership skills

• Hands-on engineering leader, with ability to develop, analyze, and review PRs
• Proven track record successfully managing 3 person software engineering teams
• High-impact coach, loyal team player, gets stuff done, good sense of humor
• Problem solver who can turn complex situations into sound action plans
• Mature leadership skills, with ability to lead through influence and direct oversight

• Opportunity to work in a dynamic team of successful serial entrepreneurs, software developers, AI researchers, and graphics engineers
• Unique opportunity to deliver best-in-industry, photorealistic, mixed-reality design products to hundreds of millions of people
• Strong people-first culture, generous PTO, a focus on self-growth, and an actively shaped team culture to ensure a happy and healthy work environment for all
• Work from our Palo Alto or Amsterdam offices is preferred, but fully remote work may be available for exceptional candidates.