Render Technical Director

Flyingbark; Sydney; Hybrid; AUD 140,000 - 210,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Hybrid work model

Breakfast daily

Mental health resources

Health insurance discount (Bupa)

Career development opportunities

Job summary

Flying Bark Productions in Sydney seeks a Render Technical Director to bridge Lighting, Surfacing and FX and to optimize high-density scenes for image quality and cost.

You will audit scenes, diagnose frame failures, fine-tune sampling, profile CPU/memory, and build internal tools in Python and Lua to streamline render workflows; experience with Renderman, Arnold or Karma is essential.

Qualifications

• 6 years experience in feature animation or VFX as a Render TD/Lighting TD.
• Deep knowledge of Renderman, Arnold or Karma.
• Proficiency with Katana and Nuke; strong scene graph understanding.
• Experience reading render logs and debugging memory issues.

Responsibilities

• Audit high-density scenes for geometry, textures, shading, and traversal efficiency.
• Diagnose and resolve render failures across Lighting, Surfacing, and FX.
• Tune sampling, ray depths, and light thresholds for budgets.
• Profile CPU, I/O, and memory; identify bottlenecks.
• Develop internal tools and scripts in Python and Lua for render workflows.
• Work with shaders in OSL/C++ on advanced production needs.

Skills

Render TD expertise

Pipeline TD experience

Python & Lua

Ray tracing & shading

Profiling & debugging

Memory management

Education

B.S. in Computer Science/CG/Math

Tools

Katana

Nuke

Renderman

Arnold

Karma

OSL/C++ shaders

Job description

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.

We are seeking a Render Technical Director (Render TD) to serve as the bridge between creative departments (Lighting, Surfacing, FX) and our render infrastructure. In this role, you will audit, profile, and optimize high-density production scenes to maximize image quality while minimizing compute cost. You will diagnose complex frame failures, fine-tune samplings, and collaborate with technical leads and creatives to balance production quality and render efficiency.

Key Responsibilities

• Scene & Asset Auditing: Inspect high-density production scenes to verify geometry (subdivisions, instancing), textures (tiled/mipmapped formats, memory footprint), shading networks, and scene graph traversal efficiency before farm dispatch.
• Troubleshooting & Technical Support: Serve as the frontline defense for diagnosing and resolving complex render failures across Surfacing, FX, and Lighting—including shading errors, memory limits/crashes, render locks, and visual artifacts (e.g., fireflies, temporal noise, aliasing).
• Optimization & Sampling Fine-Tuning: Analyze shot setups and adjust sampling, ray depths, and light thresholds tailored to specific asset, sets and sequences, to achieve target frame budgets.
• Performance Profiling & Systems Diagnostics: Profile scenes for CPU resource utilization, I/O bandwidth, and memory consumption. Utilize engine logs, diagnostics, and profilers to isolate performance bottlenecks.
• Tool Development & Automation: Build, refine, and maintain internal department tools and scripts using Python and Lua to streamline render pass setups, custom AOVs, secondary outputs, and automated denoising workflows.
• Ray Tracing & Shading Customization (Good to have): Leverage a deep understanding of light transport, sampling distributions, and ray-tracing algorithms to write or modify custom shaders (OSL, C++) and manipulate ray behavior for specialized production needs.

Technical Qualifications & Experience

Production Experience: 6 years of experience in feature animation or visual effects acting as a Render TD, Lighting TD, or Pipeline TD.

Core Render Engines: Deep operational knowledge of modern production ray-tracers (e.g. Renderman, Arnold or Karma).

Software Suite: Proficiency in DCC platforms including Katana and Nuke. Strong familiarity with scene graph structures.

Profiling & Debugging: Hands-on experience reading render logs, identifying memory leaks/spikes, or debuggers (Native DCC engine profilers).

Underlying Fundamentals: Solid foundation in computer graphics principles—including Monte Carlo sampling, BVH acceleration, color management (ACES/OCIO), and system resource limits (RAM/VRAM/IOPS).

Bonus / Desired Skills

• Experience with volumetric shaders, or utility nodes in OSL or C++.
• Familiarity with queue management platforms such as Pixar Tractor.
• Academic background in Computer Science, Computer Graphics, Physics, or Mathematics.

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 hascreated 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.