Render Wrangler

Flying Bark Productions is a dynamic and innovative animation studio dedicated to pushing the boundaries of character animation and storytelling. We are working on exciting projects such as Avatar: The Last Airbender feature film, Netflix's Ghostbusters animated series and Stranger Things animated series, as well as our production Tales From Outer Suburbia by Shaun Tan. 

About the role:

Ensuring the render farm operates with efficiency and at peak capacity, including verifying render jobs progress by tracking and prioritising jobs on the render farm and providing support to production artists, resulting in renders completing successfully.

Being the first line of troubleshooting of render farm issues.

Identifying patterns of farm failure and providing reporting to the rest of the team with clear examples to support your findings.

Per-project render management including farm job monitoring and hardware troubleshooting.

Researching and identifying root causes of render error codes and either resolve or escalate as required.

Troubleshooting 1st level application and systems issues for pipeline issues, providing support for artist application issues and general office admin, utilising wiki instructions and updating instructions where necessary.

Organising and managing the provision of Hardware for the RenderFarm.

Assessing the suitability of hardware resources and re-profile each accordingly.

Running ad-hoc testing and structured testing plans to provide accurate input on future hardware and software purchases.

Keeping up to date on all Wiki articles and Google docs pertaining to IT and pipeline, moderate and groom Resource Department Wiki articles.

Promptly responding to users’ issues, resolving them where achievable and promptly escalating them when not achievable.

Assisting with the successful completion of projects.

Other tasks as directed.

Provide support across multiple locations, including standard business hours in both Spain and Australia.

Ensure availability for weekend support as part of a rotating or scheduled coverage plan.

Contract duration: 12 months, with defined expectations around time zone flexibility and availability.

About you:

Tertiary qualifications in IT or Computer Science (or equivalent industry experience).

At least 2 years’ experience working in a similar role (IT servers, workstations) including Desktop & Server support in Windows & Linux.

Help desk ticket management and escalation.

Intermediate level skills in Python and shell (Bash) with Javascript a plus.

Systems programming is a plus.

Configuration management software awareness.

Experience with Media & Entertainment rendering (Katana, Arnold, Tractor) and other production VFX applications (Maya, Yeti, etc).

Experience using production tracking software (eg. Shotgrid).

Provisioning using Salt configuration management.

Edge firewall and general networking 101.

Server administration.

Ability to work independently with minimal supervision while remaining organised and consistently meeting deadlines.

Demonstrate excellent written and verbal communication skills.

What do we do?

Flying Bark Productions is a renowned independent producer of family-focused animation entertainment. For over 50 years, our 2D and 3D production facility has created award-winning feature films and TV series.

Why work with us?

We work on some pretty cool projects - check out our website: https://www.flyingbark.com.au/

We have an industry leading studio space in Alexandria, complete with a cinema, quiet room, Zen Garden, games room, and state of the art animation facilities.

Breakfast is served daily - on us!

We have cake days, movie nights, wrap parties & a culture club dedicated to coordinating our busy social calendar!

The Barkers have big hearts too, with our Paws for a Cause fundraising arm raising much needed funds for charities such as Beyond Blue, RSPCA and the Cancer Council.

We love dogs and you will often see some of our regular fluffy companions in the studio.

We have a hybrid approach to work with flexible work from home days on offer.

Career development is important to us so we offer training and support opportunities whenever possible.

Our employees say our culture is the best they've ever experienced - everyone is welcome and celebrated!

You'll have access to mental health resources and free counselling via our Employee Assistance Provider, Support Act.

Enjoy holistic wellbeing support through discounted health insurance with Bupa, financial wellbeing initiatives from our superannuation partner Media Super, and access to staff qualified in Mental Health First Aid.

Flying Bark Productions is proud to be an Equal Opportunity Employer.