Associate Creative Director, Visualization

About the Company

We are a renewable energy and ocean technology company committed to rapidly developing and deploying technologies that will ensure a sustainable future for Earth by unlocking the vast energy potential of its oceans. Our focus is on capturing civilizational levels of ultra-low-cost renewable energy for applications including computing and affordable renewable fuels delivered to shore.

The company is a public benefit corporation headquartered in Portland, Oregon, and backed by leading venture capitalists, philanthropic investors, university endowments, and private investment offices. We operate as an idea meritocracy in which the best ideas change the company’s direction on a regular basis.

Our staff have worked at organizations such as SpaceX, Blue Origin, Boeing, Tesla, Apple, Virgin Orbit, Astra, Google, Amazon, Microsoft, New Relic, Bridgewater, Raytheon, Disney Imagineering, and the US Army and Air Force, as well as research universities, startups, and small companies across a range of industries.

About the Job

Our core technology is the node, a device that produces energy in the ocean’s harshest conditions for years at a time without human maintenance or intervention.

You’ll help us picture what’s possible.

We’re designing an ecosystem of massive-scale ocean technologies unlike anything that exists today. You’ll turn loose whiteboard sketches, strategic conversations, engineering concepts, and harebrained ideas into visualizations that help people understand what we’re building and why it matters. These visuals become the catalyst that makes an idea real, builds momentum within the company, and moves the company forward.

You’re as curious about how it works, as you are about how it looks.

You think like an engineer and like an artist. You’re comfortable in a room full of technical people, navigating ambiguity by asking sharp questions, listening closely, and finding ways to make complex and open-ended ideas clear without butchering accuracy. You’re also obsessed with beauty. The staging, art direction, and finesse that elevates something from the generic and mundane to the extraordinary and unexpected.

You direct and you create.

You’ll lead the visualization pipeline from concept through final render. You’re a hands-on creative who knows how to sketch, model, texture, light, render, and animate — and how to guide others through the work. You understand what makes an image work from form, composition, and scale, to light, color, and mood. You also know when to step back from the details and consider the bigger picture: how each visualization fits into the Panthalassa story, moves the brand forward, and connects with our other creative work across film and website.

Candidates should have strong interpersonal skills and be able to thrive in a creative, scrappy, and collaborative environment in which the best ideas change the company’s direction on a regular basis.

Responsibilities

Once you’re here you will:

• Work directly with the CEO, Creative Director, and engineering teams to translate emerging ideas into clear, compelling visuals.
• Develop a distinctive visual language for Panthalassa’s technology and guide how it changes over time.
• Lead creative direction for visualizations, from early concepts to drawings to storyboard to finished deliverables like renderings, decks, and animations.
• Build and guide the pipeline for concepting, modeling, texturing, lighting, composition, rendering, and animation.
• Stay hands-on: sketch, model, build scenes etc. when the work calls for it.
• Direct and review freelance artists’ work, and help grow an in-house team of 2D, 3D and motion designers.

Required Qualifications

• 5+ years professional experience as a 3D artist, animator, concept artist or industrial designer, including a track record of leading visual direction on complex technical, mechanical, or industrial subject matter.
• Experience holding your own in strategic conversations about products and technologies that don't yet exist: asking sharp technical questions and understanding engineering reasoning well enough to visualize it accurately.
• Strong grounding in industrial design, mechanical design, or vehicle design, with a mastery of hard surface modeling.
• Exceptional command of light, value, composition, color, staging, mood, form, and spatial scale.
• Exceptional command of animation, camera motion, and animation curves.
• Experience mentoring, leading, or reviewing the work of other artists, or clear readiness to grow into that responsibility. 
• Excellent communicator who is self-directed, collaborative, and comfortable giving and receiving direct, constructive critique. 
• Genuine interest in ocean technology and climate solutions.

Desired Qualifications

• Strong drawing and 2D illustration skill set
• Ability to create environmental concept art

The above qualifications are desired, not required. We encourage you to apply if you are a strong candidate with only some of the desired skills and experience listed.

Compensation and Benefits

If hired for this full-time role, you will receive:

• Cash compensation of $125,000 - $180,000.
• Equity in the company. We’re all owners and if we’re successful, this equity should be far and away the most valuable component of your compensation.
• A benefits package that helps you take care of yourself and your family, including:
  • Flexible paid time off
  • Health insurance (the company pays 100% of gold-level PPO plan for full-time employees, their partners, and dependents)
  • Dental insurance (the company pays 100% for full-time employees, their partners, and dependents)
  • Vision insurance (the company pays 100% for full-time employees, their partners, and dependents)
  • Disability insurance (the company pays 100% for a policy to provide long-term financial support if you become disabled)
  • Ability to contribute to tax-advantaged accounts, including 401(k), health FSA, and dependent care FSA
• Relocation assistance to facilitate your move to Portland (if needed).

Location

This is an on-site position. Our offices, lab, and shop are located in Portland, Oregon.