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People Management Technical Project Management LiveOps Pipeline Optimization AI Integration
ART MANAGER / TECHNICAL PROJECT MANAGER
RODNEY
BRILLANTE
For eighteen years I've helped artists and engineers understand each other — at Pixar, then at Meta. Turns out that's the job I love most.
I work where big creative ideas meet what a pipeline can really deliver. That means looking after people first, then the workflows, the budget, and the thousands of assets — and it means I get as much of a kick out of building the system as out of seeing the thing ship.
Berkeley, California
FIG. 01
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18
YEARS IN TECH & FILM
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1000+
ASSETS SHIPPED IN META'S
BIGGEST DELIVERY YET
30
DIRECT REPORTS ON COCO ALONE
1B
STYLE 2 AVATARS WAS BUILT FOR
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WHERE I'VE BEEN
META
Art Manager, Reality Labs
JUL 2022 - MAR 2026
BURLINGAME, CA
Four years building the clothing your avatar wears. I ran the art side of Meta's avatar economy — a team of artists and contractors turning fashion ideas into thousands of assets that had to look good, load fast, and work for a billion people. Most of the job was making sure the artists had what they needed and cross-functional partners knew what was coming.
Meta Style 2 Avatars — the biggest delivery the company has done
I managed the LiveOps clothing artists through 1,000+ high-quality digital assets. That meant sitting with cross-functional partners and Tech Art to build systems that could actually hold up for a billion people, and with PMs to let the data point us somewhere honest.
Branded clothing — fashion and concerts
One of the more fun ones: teaming up with the RL Entertainment Design Strategy Lead on digital concert tees for Horizon Arena — Coldplay and Doja Cat among them.
AI & innovation
In partnership with a brilliant AD, I ran sprints to find out where AI genuinely helps artists rather than just sounding good in a deck. One concept-art sprint took creation time from weeks down to days.
Strategic team building
I was part of a small, specialized art team for in-product GTM banners, working shoulder to shoulder with a talented AD and Senior Character Artist, Product Designer and Game Designer. The avatar-centric rewards banners we launched moved Horizon's daily actives — which is a nice thing to be able to point at.
People management
Seven full-time artists trusted me with their career growth, and ten contract workers with their day-to-day. Keeping that team happy was never a side quest — it's the part of the work I'm proudest of. I also owned our vendor outsourcing relationships for Economy Art.
Budget & scaling headcount
When demand outgrew the team, I made the case for more budget and headcount — getting buy-off from Reality Labs leadership and our cross-functional partners, hiring alongside vendor reps, and working through the SOWs with Meta Legal.
PIXAR
ANIMATION
STUDIOS
Fourteen years and nine films, starting as a PA on Toy Story 3 and ending up running technical departments. I moved through characters, editorial, lighting, effects and simulation — which taught me that every department thinks its own constraints are the real ones, and the job is to get them working as one film. Six of those roles are below.
Production Management
MAR 2008 - JUN 2022
EMERYVILLE, CA
ELEMENTAL
Technical Project Manager, Simulation
I kept the simulation department's workflows honest — complex effects that had to satisfy the director and the render farm at the same time. Asset and shot tracking in our own CMS, and eleven people to look after.
CARS ON THE ROAD
Technical Project Manager, Lighting / FX / Simulation / Rendering
Four departments, four very different sets of problems. I held the milestones and the schedule, and ran the reviews with executive leadership.
LUCA
Project Manager, Editorial
Ten people, and a lot of translating between editorial and the creative departments. Fourteen-week screening cycles for four years — I saw every version of that film, and sat in the room for every one.
COCO
Technical Project Manager, Characters
Thirty technical artists across modeling, rigging, and shading. I watched over both the budget and the technical health of some very demanding character assets, and put animation-to-rigging workflows in place so beautiful designs didn't fall apart on the way to the screen.
INCREDIBLES 2
Technical Project Manager, Rendering / Production Mentorship
I was asked to mentor production staff through a genuinely high-pressure cycle — helping people grow while the deadlines closed in.
MONSTERS UNIVERSITY | CARS 2 | TOY STORY 3
Coordinator & Production PA
Monsters University — Built the CMS frameworks and coordinated character and set delivery. With the Animation Fix Lead, I ran polish reviews with four Animation Leads, kept seven Fix Animators unblocked, and triaged every fix request coming from downstream.
Cars 2 — Set up the CMS architecture and deliverable tracking, and kept milestones straight for 50+ technical artists in modeling, shading, and set dressing.
Toy Story 3 — Looked after the Art Department's digital assets and sat in on every art review — a very good place to start a career.
WHAT I'M GOOD AT
LEADERSHIP
Looking after people, FTE and contract
Mentorship and career growth
Getting very different teams to agree
PRODUCTION
Technical project management
LiveOps
Making pipelines less painful
Bringing AI into real workflows
OPERATIONS
Resource allocation
Headcount planning
Asking for the budget, and managing it
WHERE I STUDIED
1998 - 2002
BA Communications
UC Davis | Davis, CA
Davis was communication theory by day and music the rest of the time — trumpet in the Aggie Marching Band-uh!, singing in the Gospel Choir, Samba percussion, and the occasional singer/songwriter set. It's where I first felt what happens when performance and community meet, and honestly, that's still how I think about running a team.
THE REST OF ME
BASKETBALL | MUSIC | CINEMA | PARENTING
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