// Open Role at Flying Bark Productions
Join Flying Bark Productions as a Render Technical Director, optimizing high-density production scenes for animation powerhouses like Avatar and Stranger Things. You'll bridge creative and technical, ensuring top image quality and render efficiency.
Flying Bark Productions is a dynamic and innovative animation studio dedicated to pushing the boundaries of character animation and storytelling. We have a number of exciting productions underway, including a new 2D project with Disney, Netflix's Ghostbusters animated series and Stranger Things animated series, as well as an upcoming feature film, Zac Power.
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:
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:
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/
(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.
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.
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.
Perks & Benefits:
We have a hybrid approach to work with flexible work from home days on offer.
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.
Breakfast is served daily - on us!
Flare Benefits Platform:
Access to exclusive discounts, cashback, and premium deals at hundreds of major Australian retailers to help your pay go further.
Health Insurance Discounts:
Compare and save on private health cover with potential savings of up to $300.
Novated Leasing (Flare Cars):
Eligible employees can save an average of $10,000/year on car ownership through novated leasing.*
*Available to permanent employees and fixed-term contractors on contracts of 12 months or more.
Flying Bark Productions is proud to be an Equal Opportunity Employer.
6 years of experience in feature animation or visual effects as a Render TD, Lighting TD, or Pipeline TD. Deep operational knowledge of modern production ray-tracers (e.g., Renderman, Arnold, Karma). Proficiency in DCC platforms including Katana and Nuke. Strong familiarity with scene graph structures. Hands-on experience reading render logs, identifying memory leaks/spikes, or debuggers. Solid foundation in computer graphics principles including Monte Carlo sampling, BVH acceleration, color management (ACES/OCIO), and system resource limits. Ability to audit, profile, and optimize high-density production scenes. Skill in diagnosing complex frame failures and fine-tuning samplings. Experience building, refining, and maintaining internal department tools and scripts using Python and Lua.