David Minor
Senior Software Engineer - Graphics AI at NVIDIA
Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
Summary
🤩
Rockstar🎓
Top SchoolDavid Minor is a Senior Software Engineer specializing in graphics and AI with 15 years of experience building lighting, rendering and lookdev tools for feature film VFX, including work on Inception and Harry Potter. He designs and optimizes node-based pipelines—most notably Caribou built on the open-source Cortex/Gaffer stack—that underpin production lighting systems at Image Engine and informed his R&D roles at Digital Domain and NVIDIA. His background blends theoretical physics (UCL) and computer animation (MSc, Distinction) with hands-on systems work: shader writing for Arnold/3delight, lens-distortion tooling, panorama stitching, and physics-based simulators. A frequent contributor to Cortex and Gaffer, he improves core rendering and UI components, showing rare fluency across low-level ray algorithms, scene proceduralism and artist-facing tools. Colleagues describe him as approachable and collaborative, with a steady focus on making complex rendering technology practical for artists.
15 years of coding experience
15 years of employment as a software developer
Master of Science (MSc), Computer Animation, Distinction, Master of Science (MSc), Computer Animation, Distinction at Bournemouth UniversityUniversity College London
Github Skills (16)
c-language10
visual-effects10
lib10
cprogramming-language10
python10
image-processing9
rendering9
testing9
render9
3d-graphics9
user-interface8
uid8
data-structures8
data-structure8
front-end-development8
Programming languages (2)
Github contributions (5)
ImageEngine/cortex
Jun 2011 - Feb 2016
Libraries for visual effects software development
Role in this project:
Back-end Developer
Back-end DeveloperContributions:7 releases, 273 commits, 28 PRs in 4 years 9 months
Contributions summary:David primarily contributed to the development of visual effects software development libraries. They implemented modifications to the `ClassVectorParameter` to copy user data and added a UI handler for displaying string parameters with type hints, along with improving the existing components for geometry and their display. Furthermore they contributed to the ray algorithms. Their work involved modifying existing code, adding new functionality, and creating supporting UI components, indicating a focus on improving library features within this visual effects software development project.
visual-effects
GafferHQ/gaffer
Mar 2013 - Feb 2016
Gaffer is a node-based application for lookdev, lighting and automation
Role in this project:Full-stack Developer
Full-stack DeveloperContributions:12 releases, 223 commits, 55 PRs in 2 years 11 months
Contributions summary:David made several commits focused on improving the Gaffer node-based application. Their work involved implementing features related to rendering, particularly with the `SceneProcedural` class, as well as modifying core components like `ValuePlug` and `Expression` to improve performance and stability. They also contributed to UI elements and tests within the python portion of the project. The user's contributions also involved refactoring and fixing bugs within the codebase, showing knowledge of the underlying framework.
automation
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