Render Wrangler
Location: Sydney, Australia (Remote )
Department: Rendering Operations
Role Summary
Crafty Apes is seeking a Render Wrangler to join our growing Sydney team and support our global visual effects production.
In this role you will work closely with our Lead Render Farm Engineer and production teams to manage and monitor our render infrastructure across multiple regions.
Our render environment includes a large-scale render farm operating across global locations. We utilize modern rendering workflows to keep productions moving efficiently.
The Render Wrangler plays a key role in ensuring artists and producers can rely on the render farm throughout production. This position blends technical problem-solving, operational monitoring, and artist/producer support, making it ideal for someone who enjoys both technology and collaboration.
The ideal candidate is calm under pressure, patient when assisting artists, and comfortable explaining technical issues in simple terms.
Key Responsibilities
- Monitor the render farm and job queues to ensure renders run efficiently and complete on schedule
- Identify, troubleshoot, and resolve common render issues including stalled jobs, failed tasks, and resource conflicts
- Assist artists and production teams in troubleshooting render-related problems
- Communicate render progress, delays, or potential issues to producers and leads in a clear and proactive manner
- Work with the Lead Render Farm Engineer to maintain optimal farm performance and resource usage
- Help identify broader issues such as license shortages, slow render nodes, or network bottlenecks
- Review render logs and diagnostics to determine the cause of job failures or excessive render times
- Monitor render dashboards and farm health metrics to ensure stable operation
- Support rendering workflows across global sites
- Escalate pipeline or infrastructure issues to the Pipeline and IT teams when necessary
- Contribute ideas to improve render efficiency, automation, and workflow reliability
Required Skills
- 1–3 years of experience in a VFX, animation, or post-production environment
- Familiarity with render queue systems (Deadline, Qube, Tractor, OpenCue, etc.)
- Basic knowledge of VFX software such as Maya, Nuke, or Houdini
- Comfortable working in Linux-based and windows-based environments
- Strong troubleshooting and problem-solving skills
- Excellent communication and interpersonal skills
- Ability to explain technical issues clearly to artists and production teams
- Ability to prioritise tasks and stay organised in a fast-paced production environment
Preferred Skills
- Experience supporting a render farm or distributed compute environment
- Familiarity with Thinkbox Deadline
- Basic scripting knowledge (Python, Bash, or similar)
- Understanding of render workflows such as lighting, FX, and compositing
- Experience reading render logs and diagnosing render failures
Nice-to-Have Experience
- Exposure to V-Ray rendering workflows
- Experience working in a multi-site studio environment
- Familiarity with monitoring tools such as Grafana or similar dashboard systems
- Interest in pipeline tools, automation, or render optimization
