Production Data & Insights Engineer

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. Flying Bark runs complex, multi-show production across three studios, and much of the information needed to run it well currently lives in spreadsheets, tracking systems and people's heads. This role exists to change that. You own the data layer that makes production legible: ingestion from ShotGrid, Dynamics 365 and adjacent systems, the warehouse and semantic layer that turn those sources into agreed studio measures, and the curated dashboards and reporting through which production, finance and leadership make decisions. You will also own the operability of that stack — scheduling, testing, monitoring and data-quality checks are part of delivery here, not a later phase. You are not a pure analyst, and you are not a pipeline builder who waits for questions. The substantive work is managed-ELT configuration, warehouse modelling and semantic definition, but the point of it is insight. You are expected to interrogate what you model, find where plans are drifting from reality, and bring that to producers and executives before they ask. An engineer who ships correct models and stops there is not doing this job. About the role: Ingestion and Source Integration - Own ingestion from ShotGrid and Dynamics 365, including incremental sync, reconciliation against source, and point-in-time snapshotting - Configure and operate managed ELT tooling, treating connector configuration as versioned code rather than console state - Establish and maintain reconciliation checks that prove ingested data matches source, and surface divergence when it does not - Extend ingestion to further production and business systems as the R&D roadmap requires Warehouse and Semantic Layer - Own the semantic layer — entity models, status normalisation and metric definitions — as the single agreed definition of studio measures - Model in SQL and dbt to a standard that supports testing, lineage and documented assumptions - Maintain snapshot and slowly-changing models so that historical state and drift can be analysed, not only current state - Drive status normalisation to sign-off across shows and departments, recognising this as a governance exercise as much as a technical one - For crew planning specifically, own the ShotGrid identity join, reconciliation across workbook, planning record and engine, the snapshot model and the associated drift marts Insight and Decision Support - Build and maintain curated, role-specific dashboards, designed around the decisions each audience actually makes - Proactively interrogate the modelled data and surface findings — cost drift, schedule slip, variance against assumption, unexpected patterns in crew or task activity — rather than waiting to be asked - Own the analytical content of the weekly decision briefing: the deterministic engine owns the figures, you own the interpretation of what they mean and what warrants a decision - Work directly with production, finance and leadership stakeholders to define measures, resolve ambiguity in definitions, and retire reporting that is not used - Present findings credibly to non-technical audiences, including producers, department leads and executives, and stand behind the numbers under challenge - Document metric definitions so that any figure presented to leadership can be traced to its source Data Quality and Operations - Implement monitoring and data-quality checks from day one — a known and explicit gap in the previous reporting platform, and not a phase-two item - Own the deployment and scheduling of the data stack, including containerised transformation runs, CI on model changes, and pipeline observability and alerting - Operate on the shared platform tooling maintained by the DevOps / Platform Engineer rather than establishing a parallel deployment practice - Maintain freshness, volume and schema-change alerting such that data issues are detected before they are consumed Reporting and Visibility - Report on data platform coverage, quality and adoption to the R&D Supervisor - Surface data gaps, source-system limitations and governance blockers proactively and with supporting evidence About you: Experience and Technical Requirements - Strong SQL and hands-on dbt modelling experience in a production warehouse - Experience configuring and operating managed ELT tooling against business and operational source systems - Working knowledge of AWS and RDS / Postgres, sufficient to reason about warehouse performance and cost - Experience building and maintaining a semantic layer, including normalising inconsistent source status models into defensible metric definitions - BI development experience with Metabase, or equivalent such as Looker, Power BI or Superset - Data quality, testing and pipeline observability practice — monitoring treated as part of delivery rather than a subsequent phase - Comfort with version control, CI and containerised execution for data workloads - Demonstrated analytical judgement: a track record of finding and communicating something the business did not already know, not only of building what was requested - Python for data engineering and orchestration is an advantage - Experience in VFX, animation, broadcast or post-production is strongly preferred; if not, demonstrate clearly how you have delivered data into deadline-critical operational environments - Familiarity with ShotGrid, Dynamics 365 or comparable production and ERP systems is an advantage, as is experience replacing an incumbent reporting platform - Awareness of studio-specific data handling: role-based data scoping, sensitive cost and personnel data, and IP and asset protection Competencies Analytical Initiative: You go looking. You notice when a number does not behave the way it should, chase it down, and bring it to the people who can act on it without being prompted. Definitional Rigour: You will not let a metric mean two things in two rooms. You are willing to do the unglamorous work of getting departments to agree on a single vocabulary, and you document the assumptions behind every figure. Stakeholder Credibility: You can sit with a producer or an executive, understand the decision they are actually making, and give them something they trust. You build credibility by being reliable rather than by being impressive. Delivery Discipline: You ship working, monitored, documented models rather than perfect ones. You know the difference between a model that is finished and one that is merely finished being built. Comfort with Ambiguity: You can work with incomplete, inconsistent and undocumented source data, and make progress without waiting for it to be cleaned up first. 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. - 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.