Staff Production Engineer

Lucasfilm is looking for an experienced full-stack Python developer to join a motivated and nimble production software team. The developers in Lucasfilm Information Systems (IS) build workflow-driven applications that allow our users to efficiently create movies, TV shows, magazines, books, and games. We're hiring humble experts to join a team of well-rounded developers that thrive in an informal environment, one in which managers are there to support the process and fill in the gaps, so that developers are free to do their jobs. 

We support a broad range of users–from non-technical cast and crew, who just need tools to securely access scripts or other reference; to full-time digital asset managers, whose whole workday is spent performing complex administrative tasks in these same systems.  

We’re currently onboarding several new user groups into our core digital asset management system.  Several of these projects involve large video archives, and a key focus for our team in the coming year will be on expanding our video-related featureset.  We hope to make petabytes of time-based media more accessible, reusable, and useful for our users, and you’d be supporting that effort, both directly and indirectly.  Ideally, you’d become our team’s expert on these new users’ video workflows, and will work closely with the broader team on how best to support them in our toolset.  Strong user-orientation is key to this role, complementing deep technical expertise.

This role is considered Hybrid, which means the employee will work onsite in our San Francisco office and occasionally from home in the Bay Area.

Required Qualifications:

• 10+ years of professional software development experience:

  • Strong Python skillset, with demonstrated contributions to significant Python applications

  • Experience with Python web and API frameworks

  • Single page web app experience with modern JavaScript frameworks

• Excellent interpersonal, communication, and client-facing skills

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, other technical degree, or equivalent

Additional Highly-Valued Qualifications:

• Expertise in core technologies used by our team, including Vue, Flask, SQLAlchemy, Postgres, Redis, Solr, Celery, Aspera, Lambda, and Docker

• Expertise in time-based media: transcode, colorspace management, playback optimization, etc.

• Expertise in AWS MediaConvert

• Familiarity supporting film/tv/print media/game production processes and culture

• Experience with Digital Asset Management and Production Workflow tools

• Security orientation, and experience working with and protecting sensitive data

• Experience with async Python

About the IS team

Our Lucasfilm Information Systems team values pride and earnestness, idealism and pragmatism, and focusing on the customer as much as the code. We have a "no arrogance" policy and want to hire awesome people to work in a great department. We value Scout Rule coding ("leave the code cleaner than you found it") and finding the right tool for the right job. We're at a company that has used Python for 30 years, so balancing legacy systems and future needs is a daily battle, but that is the nature of software—reading code is as important as writing it.  We are continuously refining our processes, and encourage our developers to explore tools, techniques, and other sorts of meta-development to make themselves more productive.

You'll be part of a group that gets along well, whether it's tackling a technical issue, attending a company screening, or joining a zoom hangout on a Friday afternoon. The team is primarily ‘hybrid,’ based out of beautiful offices in Burbank and San Francisco, with a combination of in-person and remote work.

We exist to support fast moving production companies, and you will work with the knowledge that whatever you write will immediately make the job easier for someone down the hall, at Skywalker Ranch, or at one of our studios or location shoots around the world.

JoinILM

The hiring range for this position in San Francisco is $170,500 to $228,600 per year. The base pay actually offered will take into account internal equity and also may vary depending on the candidate’s geographic region, job-related knowledge, skills, and experience among other factors. A bonus and/or long-term incentive units may be provided as part of the compensation package, in addition to the full range of medical, financial, and/or other benefits, dependent on the level and position offered.