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Cesar Saez

London, UK - hi@cesarsaez.com

Engineering Manager & Technical Leader

Engineering leader with 20 years of experience spanning AI research, commercial software, and large-scale content creation platforms.

Built Foundry’s AI Research function from inception to a multi-team organization, developed engineering leaders who progressed into management roles, and currently drive portfolio-level engineering strategy and execution across Katana.

Combines deep technical credibility with a proven ability to scale teams, shape organizational direction, and consistently operate at the intersection of technical leadership, org design, and cross-portfolio strategy.

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Selected Organizational Impact

  • Developing Engineering Leaders: Developed two senior engineers into engineering managers (now leading teams across Foundry’s AI Research org); currently coaching peer EMs and newly promoted leaders across the Katana organization.
  • Org-Wide Delivery Model: Originated the Feature Facilitator rotation within my team (7 direct reports); adopted across all three Katana scrum teams (~24 engineers), enabling autonomous execution.
  • Portfolio-Wide DevEx: Led an initiative across three engineering teams, cutting local build times by up to 90%.

Skills

  • Engineering Leadership: Org Scaling & Multi-Team Management, Performance & Promotion Cycles, Technical Hiring Frameworks, Mentorship & Culture Building, Operating Model Design
  • Strategy & Stakeholders: Technology Objective Setting (OKRs), Executive Communication & QBR Presentations, Roadmap De-risking, Cross-Functional Alignment (Product/UX/Research), Stakeholder Management
  • Technical Domain: C++ & Python, USD (Universal Scene Description), ML/AI Infrastructure, System Architecture, Developer Experience (DevEx), Performance Optimization

Experience

Foundry, London

Lead Software Engineer, Katana (Engineering Manager)

Jul 2025 - Present

  • Strategic Partner to Portfolio Leadership: Coaches peer EMs and newly promoted leaders on management and organizational challenges, acting as a sounding board for portfolio leadership across the Katana organization.
  • Designed Delivery Model Adopted Org-Wide: Pioneered a decentralized “Feature Facilitator” rotation within my team (7 direct reports); the model was adopted across all three Katana scrum teams (~24 engineers), enabling autonomous day-to-day execution and ahead-of-schedule delivery while I shifted focus to cross-product strategy.
  • Stabilized Delivery During Org Restructuring: Led Katana’s USD evolution through a period of significant organizational change, partnering with Product and UX to translate long-term vision into phased roadmaps. Following the reassignment of a key architect and the loss of a senior product role, restructured delivery plans to maintain schedule commitments and over-deliver on roadmap goals.
  • Drove Cross-Org AI Strategy: Led technical discovery and cross-functional alignment (Katana, Nuke, Griptape, AI Research) for Katana’s generative AI integration. Representing the portfolio on the Engineering AI Enablement Working Group, helping define company-wide guidelines for agentic engineering workflows.
  • Improved Org-Wide DevEx: Led a portfolio-wide Developer Experience initiative across three engineering teams, reducing local build times by up to 90% and removing up to 18 minutes from common development workflows.

Foundry, London

Lead Research Engineer, AI (Engineering Manager)

Jul 2022 - Jul 2025

  • Built and Led the AI Research Function: Served as Foundry’s first research engineering lead; established the operating model that enabled Foundry’s AI Research organization to scale from a single team to four teams, while managing two teams (6 direct reports) through performance, promotion, and hiring cycles.
  • Grew and Developed the Team: Ran full performance review and promotion cycles across 3 years: promoted 1 engineer to senior and enabled 2 senior engineers to advance into leadership roles, later becoming my successors as the organization expanded. Navigated a probationary performance case, managing the outcome in accordance with HR process.
  • Owned Product and Strategy Leadership for the Research Org: With no embedded product partner or delivery manager, I served as the research org’s product face to portfolio stakeholders, contributed to setting departmental technology objectives (OKRs), and presented research progress at executive QBRs in front of Foundry’s leadership team across multiple cycles.
  • Delivered Flagship ML Features for Nuke: Led the teams that shipped CopyCat, Inference, and Cattery - machine learning features in Nuke, Foundry’s industry-standard compositing software that has been part of virtually every Hollywood production in the last 15 years.
  • Standardized Technical Hiring Org-Wide: Designed the research hiring framework that was adopted across the entire R&D organization, applied to approximately 10 research engineering hires, improving evaluation consistency and reducing bias.

Foundry, London

Senior Research Engineer, Real-Time

Sep 2020 - Jul 2022

  • Technical Lead, Nuke Stage: Held technical leadership on the Nuke Stage project - a commercial virtual production solution for real-time compositing and GPU-driven effects - driving key architecture decisions early in the development of the project.
  • Foundational USD Architecture for Nuke: Prototyped Nuke’s USD-based 3D system; the architecture was adopted and shipped in Nuke 14+. Nuke is the industry-standard compositing software present in virtually every major VFX pipeline worldwide.

DNEG, London

Software Engineer, R&D

Aug 2019 - Sep 2020

  • Engineered core libraries and asset resolution systems for the Scene Description platform using Universal Scene Description (USD). Work featured in productions including Tenet, No Time to Die, and Fast & Furious 9.
  • Drove studio-wide workflows by collaborating across pipeline, layout, and tools teams to support large-scale feature film production.

Animal Logic, Sydney

Software Engineer, R&D

Feb 2016 - Aug 2019

  • Developed and maintained in-house authoring frameworks used across feature animation pipelines. Work featured in productions including Captain Marvel, The LEGO Movie 2, and the Peter Rabbit series.
  • Engineered scalable production pipelines using USD, enabling flexible asset interchange and facilitating studio-wide growth.

Earlier Career in Animation/VFX

Rigging Supervisor / Lead & Senior Character TD

2005 - 2015

  • Rigging Supervisor at Kandor Graphics, leading the rigging department through full feature-film production while managing a team of artists and coordinating across animation and tools teams.
  • Senior character TD roles on major productions including The LEGO Batman Movie and The LEGO Ninjago Movie before transitioning into software engineering and R&D.

Recommendations

Cesar is a skilled software engineer who believes in the craft of coding and has a great understanding of how software fits together. He doesn't settle for what's worked in the past, but is an innovator who searches for newer, better and cooler ways to do things.
– Eoin Murphy, Senior Software Engineer at NVIDIA
I had the pleasure of working with Cesar for The Lego Batman movie and Lego Ninjago Movie. He was a great problem solver and was always looking for ways to improve our processes and pipeline. I depended on him to assist our more entry level team members and he did a great job teaching us new ways to produce better code.
– Josh Murtack, Senior Creature Technical Director at Weta FX
The best assets of Cesar are their creativity in front of problems and his increidble human touch. During his time as Lead Character TD, he worked to provide flexibility and reliability to the rigs, as well as tools for all the departments. Then, he took the helm of the rigging department and thanks to him we were able to work as a solid team, bringing solutions for all the studio, and facing long-term goals for next productions. And after all this, it seems that we only scratch the surface of his ideas and potential.
– Ricard Miras Bellavista, Character TD and Developer at 23lunes
Cesar has an excellent balance of innovation and productivity. He is always thinking about faster, cleaner and reusable ways to achieve things but never forgets that his tools and rigs will be used by people in a real production. Furthermore, he likes teamwork and is willing to help colleagues. I am lucky to be working with him.
– Angel Pavon, Core Development Manager at Raw Gaming Group

Education

Universidad Central, Chile

B.Sc. in Construction Engineering

2000 - 2005

Passed with Distinction

Social Links

  • Github: https://www.github.com/csaez
  • Mastodon: https://hachyderm.io/@cesarsaez
  • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cesarsaez
  • Website: https://www.cesarsaez.com