Senior Grooming TD

Skydance Media is hiring a Senior Grooming TD at their studio in Madrid. This role sits within the character and creature department, where the work directly shapes how hair, fur, and feathers read on screen across feature animation production. It is a strong fit for a grooming specialist who has moved beyond execution and can own lookdev decisions while supporting a wider team technically.

About the Role

The Senior Grooming TD works inside an established VFX pipeline, building and delivering grooms across a full range of character types, from human leads to feathered and furry creatures. Day-to-day work involves close coordination with surfacing and lighting to ensure grooms hold up through simulation and final render. This is a production-facing position, which means scheduling and deliverable management are part of the job alongside the craft.

Key Responsibilities

• Create hero-level hairstyles, fur grooms, and feather setups for human characters, creatures, props, and environment elements within art direction guidelines.
• Develop shading and lookdev for groomed assets, ensuring consistency from turntable to final shot across Arnold or Renderman renders.
• Contribute to departmental tool development, including Houdini HDA creation and pipeline integration for grooming workflows.
• Provide technical guidance and artistic mentorship to junior and mid-level grooming artists within the team.
• Stay current with grooming and simulation methodologies and evaluate new tools for production suitability.
• Work directly with production to track priorities, manage delivery schedules, and solve problems as they surface across the animation pipeline.

What You Bring

• 5 or more years of experience in VFX or animation, with at least 3 of those years in feature animation production.
• Strong working knowledge of Houdini, including VEX and HDA creation, as the primary grooming platform.
• Hands-on experience with tools including xGen, Yeti, Shave and Haircut, Mari, Substance, and familiarity with CFX simulation tools such as nhair, Vellum, or Carbon.
• Solid understanding of grooming, surfacing, simulation, and rendering as interconnected disciplines within a production pipeline.
• Python or C/C++ programming experience is a meaningful advantage.
• Professional working English is required; Spanish is a plus for day-to-day studio life in Madrid.

Why This Role

Skydance Media has built a production operation in Madrid that works at feature film scale, giving TDs access to high-complexity character work and a pipeline built for it. The Senior Grooming TD role here carries real creative and technical ownership, not just execution of others’ decisions. For a grooming artist looking to go deeper on both craft and mentorship within an animation studio environment, this is a substantive step.

Apply now for the Senior Grooming TD position at Skydance Media and bring your groom work to feature-level characters.