Walt Disney Animation Studios General TD Intern, Summer 2026

Walt Disney Co.•Burbank, CA

57d•Onsite

About The Position

General TD Intern, Disney Animation - Summer 2026 The Internship Program Have you wondered how your skills and talents could translate into the world of animation? Our Internship Program dives into the craft, technology, and operations behind our animated films while developing your skills and connecting you to industry mentors. You'll learn what it means to be a part of a collaborative team and how your unique talents can grow within our studio. Find yourself immersed in hands-on projects and learning guided by our artists, technologists, and production leaders. Learn more about our filmmaking process here. At Walt Disney Animation Studios we have a deep commitment to the philosophy that creativity inspires technology, and technology inspires creativity. Our Technical Directors (Pipeline TDs) are responsible for providing support to our artist teams in a variety of areas including writing tools to facilitate the CG animation process, acting as a liaison to software and system engineers, and providing front-line artist support. Technical Directors function as an integral part of the artist departments they're associated with, designing or optimizing processes and tools to best fit production needs. They should look at production systems holistically and have an ability to visualize the larger pipeline, understand the impact of their actions, and how to optimize processes and tools. Technical Directors also have an important role in our ongoing efforts to push the boundaries of what we're capable of producing in our various toolsets. Examples of Projects Include: Novel interaction interfaces and models for artists Tools for procedurally generating worlds Creative workflows built on existing platforms to solve production-specific problems Evolutions and revolutions of our production data pipeline As a Technical Director Intern, you will be paired with a mentor(s) who has identified a problem in need of a solution. Under the guidance of your mentor you will meet with end-users to identify requirements, propose a path to solving this problem, research necessary components of that solution, implement the solution by writing code that integrates into our studio pipelines and takes advantage of proprietary libraries where necessary, iterate with end-users to get and respond to feedback, and finally present the results of the project. Along the way you will get to interact with other interns and learn about life at Walt Disney Animation Studios.

Requirements

An understanding of the production processes and pipelines of CG Animation, VFX or Video Game productions
An understanding of element production and shot production phases including modeling, rigging, animation, layout, look development and lighting/rendering
Strong problem solving skills required
Ability to work in a collaborative environment and provide support to members of various departments.
Experience with scripting including Python, C++ and MEL
Exposure to commercial graphics packages including Maya, Houdini and Global Illumination Lighting packages
Exposure to the Linux or Unix operating system