{"id":881938,"url":"https://alion.io/job/swayboxstudios-lead-render-wrangler","title":"Lead Render Wrangler","company":{"id":688022,"name":"Swaybox Studios","domain":"swayboxstudios.com","url":"https://alion.io/company/swayboxstudios","size_band":"51-200","is_staffing_agency":false,"employer_type":"direct","is_intermediary":false,"listed_via":null,"ats_vendor":"Greenhouse","truth_index":null},"role":"Operations","role_family":"Operations","seniority":"lead","employment_type":null,"work_mode":"on_site","remote_scope":null,"remote_scope_basis":null,"remote_working_hours":null,"hiring_geo_confidence":"structured","locations":["New Orleans, United States"],"countries":["US"],"hiring_countries":[],"hiring_countries_total":0,"salary":null,"salary_estimate":{"min_usd":84000,"max_usd":193000,"period":"year","method":"role_seniority_country_remote_cell","sample_n":660},"experience_years_min":null,"visa_sponsorship":false,"relocation_package":false,"has_equity":false,"technologies":[{"name":"AWS","optional":false},{"name":"Houdini","optional":false},{"name":"Linux","optional":false},{"name":"Maya","optional":false},{"name":"Unreal Engine","optional":false},{"name":"Windows","optional":false},{"name":"Bash","optional":true},{"name":"PowerShell","optional":true},{"name":"Python","optional":true}],"status":"live","first_seen_at":"2026-09-01T14:38:38Z","employer_posted_date":"2026-09-01","last_verified_at":"2026-10-01T08:08:31Z","board_verified":true,"closed_at":null,"days_open":30,"trust":{"level":"ok","repost_count":null,"flags":[],"days_open":30},"description":"Why join Swaybox Studios?\nSwaybox Studios is rewriting the rulebook of visual storytelling. As we collaborate with DC Studios/Warner Bros Pictures Animation and Matt Reeves’ 6th and Idaho on a revolutionary new project, you’ll help bring bold creative visions to life through hands-on artistry and performance. This is your chance to be a part of a production that’s equal parts innovative and unforgettable.\nWhy join Swaybox Studios?\nSwaybox Studios is rewriting the rulebook of visual storytelling. As we collaborate with DC Studios/Warner Bros Pictures Animation and Matt Reeves’ 6th and Idaho on a revolutionary new project, you’ll play a vital role in coordinating the artistry and logistics that bring bold visions to life. This is your chance to help lead a production that’s equal parts innovative and unforgettable.\nJob Summary\nSwaybox Studios is seeking a technically skilled and highly organized Lead Render Wrangler to join our VFX team and help establish, operate, and optimize our render farm for feature film production. This role will be instrumental in the initial setup and ongoing management of our rendering infrastructure, supporting a hybrid environment of dedicated render nodes, artist workstations, and cloud-based rendering resources.\nThe Lead Render Wrangler will work closely with Pipeline, IT, Supervisors, Technical Directors, and Production to ensure renders move efficiently through the farm, troubleshoot failed or stalled jobs, manage priorities, and identify potential capacity or infrastructure issues before they impact production.\nIn addition to the day-to-day operation of the render farm, this person will help develop render farm workflows, monitoring practices, documentation, and escalation procedures as the studio scales into full production. The ideal candidate is technically curious, calm under pressure, highly communicative, and comfortable working in a growing studio environment where systems and workflows are actively being developed.\nThis is an excellent opportunity for an experienced Render Wrangler or technically minded VFX professional who enjoys solving problems, improving workflows, and helping build a reliable rendering operation from the ground up.\nWork Location: Onsite in New Orleans, LA\nKey Responsibilities\nAssist with the setup, configuration, testing, and rollout of the studio's render farm infrastructure in collaboration with Pipeline and IT.\nLead the day-to-day operation and monitoring of the render farm, ensuring render jobs are processing efficiently and production priorities are being met.\nMonitor render queues, machine availability, worker health, job failures, storage usage, and overall farm utilization.\nTroubleshoot failed, stalled, or inefficient render jobs and identify whether issues originate from scenes, assets, software, licensing, hardware, plugins, or pipeline configuration.\nWork closely with artists and department leads to diagnose rendering issues and provide clear guidance on next steps.\nCoordinate render priorities with VFX Production, Supervisors, and department leads based on production schedules, reviews, and delivery deadlines.\nHelp establish and maintain render farm policies, queue structures, priorities, resource allocation, and best practices.\nSupport a hybrid rendering environment that may include dedicated CPU/GPU render nodes, artist workstations utilized during off-hours, and cloud-based rendering resources.\nAssist Pipeline and IT with testing new render hardware, software versions, plugins, licenses, and configurations before deployment into production.\nMonitor farm capacity and utilization trends and communicate potential bottlenecks or resource shortages to Production, Pipeline, and IT.\nTrack and report useful render metrics, including render times, machine utilization, job failure rates, queue volume, and capacity requirements.\nHelp identify unusually expensive or inefficient renders and work with artists and technical teams to determine potential optimizations.\nSupport the integration and testing of cloud rendering and assist with determining when additional cloud capacity may be required to meet production demand.\nHelp establish procedures for escalating technical issues to Pipeline, IT, or department Technical Directors.\nMaintain clear documentation for render farm workflows, troubleshooting procedures, common errors, and operational best practices.\nDevelop processes for shift handoffs and communication so that render issues, priorities, and outstanding problems are clearly documented.\nTrain, mentor, and provide day-to-day guidance to additional Render Wranglers as the render team grows.\nCollaborate with Pipeline and Production to continuously improve render submission, monitoring, reporting, and resource-management workflows.\nRequired Qualifications\nPrevious experience in a lead or senior Render Wrangler position, working in VFX, animation, feature film, or another high-volume CG production environment\nExperience mentoring or overseeing other Render Wranglers.\nProfessional experience with render wrangling, render farm operations, pipeline support, systems support, or a comparable technical production role.\nStrong understanding of CG rendering workflows and the relationship between artists, render software, render farms, storage, and production pipelines.\nExperience working with a render farm management or queue-management system such as Deadline, OpenCue, Qube!, Tractor, or similar.\nExperience troubleshooting failed render jobs and interpreting render logs and error messages.\nFamiliarity with common VFX and CG applications such as Maya, Houdini, Nuke, Unreal Engine, or similar production software.\nExperience working with cloud render management services such as AWS Deadline Cloud or similar cloud infrastructure.\nExperience managing hybrid render environments combining on-premises hardware and cloud resources.\nExperience with Deadline Monitor, Deadline Client, and management of Deadline Workers.\nWorking knowledge of Windows and/or Linux environments, file systems, network storage, and shared production resources.\nAbility to distinguish between scene-related, pipeline-related, licensing, network, storage, and hardware issues and escalate appropriately.\nStrong organizational skills with the ability to manage multiple priorities in a deadline-driven production environment.\nExcellent written and verbal communication skills and the ability to explain technical issues clearly to both technical and non-technical team members.\nAbility to work independently, take ownership of problems, and follow issues through to resolution.\nComfortable working in an evolving production environment where workflows, tools, and infrastructure may continue to change as production scales.\nPreferred Qualifications\nExperience helping build, expand, migrate, or configure a render farm for VFX or animation production.\nExperience with both CPU- and GPU-based rendering workflows.\nFamiliarity with renderers such as Arnold, Unreal, or similar rendering technologies.\nExperience supporting Unreal Engine rendering workflows in a VFX or feature film environment.\nFamiliarity with scripting or automation using Python, PowerShell, Bash, or similar tools.\nExperience with production tracking systems such as Flow Production Tracking (ShotGrid).\nUnderstanding of software licensing and license-server considerations within render farm environments.\nFamiliarity with render farm performance metrics, capacity planning, utilization reporting, and cost analysis.\nExperience working closely with Pipeline Engineering, Systems/IT, and Production teams to develop and improve studio rendering workflows.\nExperience working in a startup, rapidly growing studio, or production environment where infrastructure and workflows are being developed alongside active production.\nAt Swaybox Studios, we believe that great storytelling comes from diverse voices, perspectives, and experiences. We are proud to be an Equal Opportunity Employer and are committed to building a team that represents a variety of backgrounds, talents, and identities.\nWe do not discriminate in employment opportunities or practices on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, age, national origin, disability, genetic information, veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by federal, state, or local law.\nSwaybox Studios also complies with applicable Louisiana laws governing non-discrimination in employment. 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