How to Apply to SBS

17 min read Last updated April 20, 2026 1 open positions
Blake Crosley
Blake Crosley Researched using publicly available information, hiring data, and ATS analysis.

Key Takeaways

  • SBS is Australia's multilingual and multicultural national public broadcaster, established under the SBS Act 1991, headquartered at Artarmon in Sydney with a major Melbourne base, employing approximately 1,200 staff across TV (SBS, SBS Viceland, SBS World Movies, SBS Food, NITV), SBS On Demand, SBS Audio (60+ languages), and SBS digital news.
  • Funding is hybrid: a triennial federal appropriation from the Australian Government plus limited commercial advertising and sponsorship revenue, distinguishing SBS structurally from the wholly publicly funded ABC and from the wholly commercial Australian networks (Nine, Seven, News Corp, Paramount).
  • Apply through sbs.com.au/aboutus/careers; create a single candidate profile, set alerts, and reuse documents across applications to SBS, NITV, SBS Audio, SBS On Demand, and corporate functions.
  • Every advertised role has a Position Description with key capabilities and selection criteria; address them explicitly in your cover letter or a separate statement, because the panel scores you against this rubric, and include language fluency and cultural-community connection where relevant.
  • Interviews are structured, behavioural, and panel-based, conducted in STAR format and scored against a written rubric; prepare three to five concrete stories that cover editorial judgment, audience impact, working under pressure, accountability, and cultural-community engagement.
  • Editorial roles are evaluated heavily on familiarity with the SBS Charter, the SBS Codes of Practice, and the complaints process, including the role of the SBS Ombudsman; commercial-broadcaster reflexes do not transfer cleanly.
  • NITV and identified First Nations roles assess cultural authority and community accountability alongside craft; identified positions advertised under the special-measures provisions of the Racial Discrimination Act 1975 may be open only to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander applicants and require confirmation of Aboriginality.
  • The workforce is heavily unionised through the MEAA (editorial, production, on-air) and the CPSU (corporate and administrative); expect SBS Enterprise Agreement pay bands rather than freely negotiated salaries for most roles.
  • Brand fit matters: SBS World News, NITV News, The Feed, Insight, Dateline, Living Black, The Point, SBS On Demand, SBS Audio in-language programs, the Eurovision broadcast, and the Tour de France coverage all have distinct cultures, and applications should be tailored to the specific brand.

About SBS

SBS, the Special Broadcasting Service, is Australia's multilingual and multicultural national public broadcaster, established under the Special Broadcasting Service Act 1991 and operating under a charter that requires it to provide multilingual and multicultural radio, television, and digital media services that inform, educate, and entertain all Australians and, in doing so, reflect Australia's multicultural society. SBS sits alongside the ABC as the second of Australia's two federally funded public broadcasters, but its mandate is structurally different: where the ABC serves a generalist national audience under the ABC Act 1983, SBS is uniquely tasked with multilingual content, multicultural representation, and First Nations storytelling, broadcasting in more than 60 languages across radio, on-demand audio, free-to-air television, and the SBS On Demand streaming service. SBS is funded through a hybrid model that combines a triennial federal appropriation from the Australian Government with limited commercial advertising and sponsorship revenue, the latter being a meaningful structural distinction from the ABC, which is wholly publicly funded and runs no advertising. The network's headquarters is the purpose-built SBS broadcast centre in Artarmon on Sydney's Lower North Shore, with a major secondary base in Melbourne (Federation Square / Cremorne) and operations across every state and territory through the SBS Radio language program network. Free-to-air television comprises five linear channels — SBS, SBS Viceland, SBS World Movies, SBS Food, and the dedicated First Nations channel NITV (National Indigenous Television, which sits inside the SBS family and is a critical piece of the Corporation's identity). The SBS On Demand streaming service is one of the major Australian SVOD platforms, competing in the local market with ABC iview, Stan, 7plus, 9Now, and 10 Play, and is increasingly the home of foreign-language drama, world cinema, and SBS-commissioned documentary; SBS Audio (formerly SBS Radio) operates the most multilingual radio service in the world, broadcasting daily in more than 60 languages including dedicated services such as SBS Arabic, SBS Mandarin, SBS Cantonese, SBS Vietnamese, SBS Korean, SBS Hindi, SBS Punjabi, SBS Italian, SBS Greek, SBS Spanish, SBS Filipino, SBS Russian, and SBS Persian, plus SBS National Indigenous Radio and the rolling English-language news services SBS World News and SBS Chill. SBS holds the long-running Australian broadcast rights for the Eurovision Song Contest, the FIFA World Cup (in selected cycles), the Tour de France, the Giro d'Italia, the Vuelta a Espana, and a meaningful share of world cinema premieres; the Eurovision broadcast in particular has become a cultural fixture and a recognisable part of the SBS brand. Editorially, SBS operates under the SBS Codes of Practice, the SBS Editorial Guidelines, and the oversight of the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA); independent complaint review sits with the SBS Ombudsman. The SBS Board, appointed by the Governor-General on the recommendation of the federal government, sits above a Managing Director who serves as editor-in-chief and chief executive; James Taylor was appointed Managing Director in 2024, succeeding Acting Managing Director and prior CEO James Taylor and longer-tenured leadership including former Managing Director James Taylor's predecessors James Taylor and Michael Ebeid, with Chair Dr George Savvides currently leading the Board. The SBS workforce of roughly 1,200 staff (with several hundred additional language-program contractors) is heavily covered by the Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance (MEAA) for editorial, production, and on-air staff and by the CPSU for corporate and administrative staff, and the SBS Enterprise Agreement is a meaningful and visible part of the working environment. Programmatically, the network is best known for First Nations storytelling on NITV (Living Black, NITV News, The Point, and a deep slate of commissioned First Nations drama), award-winning Australian documentary (Insight, Dateline, Living Black, See What You Made Me Do), distinctive feature-length investigations (the Australia Uncovered strand), foreign-language drama (the SBS Sunday-night world drama tradition), and the long-running World Movies film slate; news and current affairs is anchored by SBS World News, NITV News, and the in-language bulletins across SBS Audio. Candidates evaluating SBS should expect a mission-driven, charter-bound, hybrid-funded organisation with salaries below commercial Australian network benchmarks, generous leave and superannuation entitlements, an unusually multilingual and multicultural staff body, a serious commitment to First Nations representation through NITV and the SBS Reconciliation Action Plan, and a small-by-network-standards but high-impact role in the Australian media landscape.

Application Process

  1. 1
    Search and apply through sbs

    Search and apply through sbs.com.au/aboutus/careers, which is the public face of SBS's recruitment portal; create a candidate profile so you can track multiple applications, set up job alerts across SBS, NITV, SBS Audio, SBS On Demand, and corporate functions, and reuse your supporting documents across roles, divisions, and locations.

  2. 2
    Pay close attention to the closing date on each advertised role; SBS requisition

    Pay close attention to the closing date on each advertised role; SBS requisitions almost always have a hard deadline (commonly two to three weeks after posting), late applications are routinely rejected, and visible roles in News, NITV, SBS Audio language programs, SBS On Demand product and engineering, and the Eurovision broadcast team can attract hundreds of applicants in a few days.

  3. 3
    Most SBS role advertisements link to a separate Position Description PDF; downlo

    Most SBS role advertisements link to a separate Position Description PDF; download it, treat the listed key capabilities and selection criteria as the rubric the recruiter and hiring panel will score you against, and structure your cover letter and resume so that each capability is explicitly addressed with a concrete example, including any language fluency or cultural-community connection where relevant.

  4. 4
    After you submit, expect an acknowledgement email within 24 hours and a recruite

    After you submit, expect an acknowledgement email within 24 hours and a recruiter triage decision within two to four weeks; SBS publishes typical timelines on its careers site and tries to keep applicants updated through the portal rather than by individual phone calls.

  5. 5
    Shortlisted candidates are invited to a structured panel interview, almost alway

    Shortlisted candidates are invited to a structured panel interview, almost always with two or three interviewers including the hiring manager and at least one cross-functional representative; for editorial and on-air roles a senior editor, executive producer, or NITV editorial leader joins the panel, and for technical, production, engineering, and corporate roles a subject-matter expert sits alongside the people leader.

  6. 6
    Most editorial, production, and craft roles include a practical assessment: a wr

    Most editorial, production, and craft roles include a practical assessment: a writing or translation test for in-language journalists, an editing exercise for video editors and producers, a panel-style on-air audition for radio and TV presenters (often required in the relevant community language), a captioning and subtitling test for the SBS Subtitling Unit, a music or music-rights task for SBS Chill and music-curation roles, a technical scenario for engineering and broadcast operations, a product or engineering exercise for SBS On Demand roles, and a portfolio review for design, motion, and digital roles.

  7. 7
    For NITV and First Nations-identified roles, expect the panel to include First N

    For NITV and First Nations-identified roles, expect the panel to include First Nations leaders and to assess cultural authority, community connections, and lived experience alongside craft; identified positions are advertised under the special-measures provisions of the Racial Discrimination Act 1975 and may be open only to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander applicants, with applicants asked to provide confirmation of Aboriginality consistent with the three-part working definition (descent, self-identification, and community acceptance).

  8. 8
    Successful candidates progress to reference checks (typically two professional r

    Successful candidates progress to reference checks (typically two professional referees including your most recent direct manager), a National Police Check, proof of right to work in Australia, and for journalism, on-air, and child-facing roles a Working with Children Check in the relevant state or territory; senior leadership roles add a media background check and a conflict-of-interest disclosure.

  9. 9
    Offers are issued in writing and confirmed in a letter of engagement that specif

    Offers are issued in writing and confirmed in a letter of engagement that specifies whether the role is ongoing, fixed-term (commonly six, twelve, or twenty-four months for editorial productions tied to a commission, an Olympic Games or Eurovision broadcast cycle, or a specific NITV slate), or specified-task; pay points sit on the SBS Enterprise Agreement bands negotiated with MEAA and the CPSU, and superannuation is paid in line with the SBS-nominated rate, which for ongoing staff sits at the higher public-broadcaster benchmark.

Resume Tips for SBS

recommended

Address the selection criteria explicitly, either inside the cover letter or in

Address the selection criteria explicitly, either inside the cover letter or in a short separate statement; the SBS hiring panel scores against the Position Description's key capabilities and a CV that hides the relevant evidence inside generic role descriptions usually loses to a CV that names the criterion and gives a specific example beneath it.

recommended

Lead with audience impact wherever you can quantify it: in-language audience rea

Lead with audience impact wherever you can quantify it: in-language audience reach, SBS On Demand minutes streamed, podcast downloads on SBS Audio, ratings share for an SBS or NITV slot, completion rates on a long-form documentary, social engagement with a multicultural community, or the editorial impact of a story (policy change, royal commission referral, regulatory action, public correction) rather than a list of duties.

recommended

Make charter alignment visible

Make charter alignment visible. The SBS Charter requires multilingual and multicultural radio, television, and digital media services that inform, educate, and entertain all Australians and reflect Australia's multicultural society; if you have produced content that demonstrably served a culturally and linguistically diverse audience, an in-language community, or a First Nations audience, name it and quantify it, because charter-fit is a real evaluation lens for editorial and content roles.

recommended

For language-program and in-language journalism roles, state your language profi

For language-program and in-language journalism roles, state your language proficiencies precisely (native, near-native, professional working, conversational) using a recognisable framework such as the Common European Framework of Reference (CEFR) or the Australian National Accreditation Authority for Translators and Interpreters (NAATI) certification level; SBS language program panels read these claims carefully and frequently test them in interview.

recommended

Show explicit experience with the brands and platforms you would be working on:

Show explicit experience with the brands and platforms you would be working on: SBS, SBS Viceland, SBS World Movies, SBS Food, NITV, SBS On Demand, SBS Audio (and the in-language program networks), SBS World News, NITV News, The Feed, Insight, Dateline, Living Black, The Point, Australia Uncovered, the Eurovision broadcast, the Tour de France coverage, and the SBS Subtitling Unit are the touchpoints that hiring managers recognise instantly.

recommended

Highlight regulated-environment fluency

Highlight regulated-environment fluency. SBS operates under the SBS Act 1991, the SBS Codes of Practice, the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) codes, the Children's Television Standards, the Australian Privacy Principles, and the Broadcasting Services Act 1992; experience with editorial standards, fact-checking, complaints handling, defamation risk, contempt of court, and source protection should be on the page.

recommended

For technical, broadcast operations, and engineering roles, list the actual syst

For technical, broadcast operations, and engineering roles, list the actual systems you have used: Avid (Media Composer, Pro Tools, iNEWS, Interplay), Adobe Premiere Pro and After Effects, DaVinci Resolve, Dalet, ENPS, Lawo, Calrec, Riedel, NDI workflows, IP-based broadcast (SMPTE 2110), playout automation, satellite uplink and downlink, OB van operations, AWS or GCP cloud workflows, video pipelines (HLS, DASH, DRM), and CDN orchestration; SBS On Demand engineering specifically sits inside a modern cloud-native streaming stack.

recommended

Demonstrate cultural-community depth where the role implies it

Demonstrate cultural-community depth where the role implies it. Language-program roles, NITV roles, the SBS Audio in-language services, multicultural commissioning, and community-relations positions value lived experience, demonstrated community trust, in-country reporting history, and a track record of safe and ethical engagement with diaspora and First Nations communities; generic 'multicultural interest' is not enough.

recommended

Keep the layout clean and ATS-friendly

Keep the layout clean and ATS-friendly. The SBS recruitment portal parses standard chronological PDFs and DOCX files reliably; avoid columns, text boxes, header-and-footer content, and graphical CV templates because they break the parser and force the recruiter to rebuild your candidate profile by hand. Two pages is normal, three is acceptable for senior roles, and an explicit Australian work-rights line at the top is expected.

ATS System: SBS Careers Portal

SBS operates its careers experience on a custom recruitment portal hosted at sbs.com.au/aboutus/careers, which routes every requisition (editorial, production, on-air, language-program, NITV, SBS On Demand product and engineering, technology, broadcast operations, corporate, and senior leadership) through a single tenant. The portal exposes a standard candidate experience: search and filter by team, location, and contract type, apply with a profile, attach a tailored resume and cover letter, set up job alerts, and track the status of multiple applications inside one account. Recruiters work entirely inside the portal for triage, panel scheduling, scorecard capture, reference checks, offer generation, and pre-employment screening coordination, so the structured fields of the candidate profile (work history, education, qualifications, tickets and clearances, languages, work rights, and Working with Children Check status) are at least as important as the uploaded resume. SBS treats the portal as the canonical source of truth for application history; recruiters can see your full SBS application record across years and divisions.

  • Create a single SBS candidate profile and reuse it across every SBS, NITV, SBS Audio, and SBS On Demand application rather than starting fresh each time, so the recruiter and hiring panel can see your application history and so you can track status from one place.
  • Complete every structured field in the profile, especially right-to-work, Working with Children Check status, languages (with proficiency level and any NAATI certification), qualifications, and tickets or clearances, because SBS recruiters filter on these fields when triaging high-volume requisitions.
  • Upload a clean PDF or DOCX resume under 5 MB with a chronological structure, no columns or tables, and clear section headers; the parser populates structured profile fields from your resume, and a complex layout produces a noisy and incomplete profile.
  • Mirror the exact language of the Position Description and the listed key capabilities in your resume and cover letter, because keyword search is one of the first triage tools the recruiter uses, particularly on high-volume requisitions in News, NITV, SBS Audio language programs, and SBS On Demand engineering.
  • Set up job alerts for the brands and locations you care about (SBS News, NITV, the specific SBS Audio language programs you can serve, SBS On Demand product and engineering, the Eurovision and major-event production team), because requisitions often close within two to three weeks of posting and the most competitive roles can close earlier.
  • Withdraw applications you are no longer interested in directly inside the portal rather than going silent, because recruiters can see your full SBS application history and a tidy profile signals professionalism.
  • For NITV identified roles, complete the cultural identification fields honestly and be prepared to provide written confirmation of Aboriginality consistent with the three-part working definition (descent, self-identification, and community acceptance) at offer stage.

Complete SBS Careers Portal Resume Guide →

Interview Culture

SBS interviews are structured, panel-based, and noticeably formal compared with commercial broadcasters and most Australian start-ups, reflecting the network's status as a federally accountable public-sector employer with a charter mandate. Almost every interview is conducted by a panel of two to three people, scored against a written rubric tied to the Position Description's key capabilities, and documented to a standard that allows the decision to withstand internal review and, where required, external scrutiny. The dominant interview format is behavioural, asking for a specific example from your recent past in the STAR structure (Situation, Task, Action, Result), and panellists will press on the Action and Result components if a candidate stays at a hypothetical or strategic altitude. For editorial roles, expect detailed probing of editorial judgment under pressure: how you weighed publishing a sensitive story, how you handled a source from a small or vulnerable community who asked to retract on the eve of broadcast, how you balanced public interest against potential harm to a named individual, how you would respond to a complaint from a community organisation or a federal minister, and how you would handle pressure from inside or outside SBS to soften, amplify, or reframe a story. Familiarity with the SBS Codes of Practice, the role of the SBS Ombudsman, and the practical mechanics of the complaints process is expected from anyone applying to a content-making role. For NITV and First Nations roles, the panel will explicitly assess cultural authority, community accountability, and the candidate's understanding of First Nations protocols around story sovereignty, deceased-persons content warnings, and the lateral-violence dynamics that complicate small-community reporting; commercial-newsroom reflexes do not transfer cleanly. For SBS Audio in-language roles, panels probe genuine community trust, fluency under pressure (often with a live in-language reading or translation exercise during the interview), and the ability to balance the editorial standards of an Australian public broadcaster with the cultural conventions of the relevant diaspora community. For SBS On Demand product and engineering roles, expect a long discussion of streaming-platform fundamentals (DRM, adaptive bitrate, encoding, CDN orchestration, recommendation systems, accessibility, IPv6 readiness, app-store relationships with Apple, Google, Samsung, LG, and the connected-TV platforms) and the trade-offs of building a public-broadcaster streaming product on a smaller budget than commercial competitors. For Eurovision, FIFA World Cup, Tour de France, and major-event broadcast roles, expect questions about working in a heightened-tempo, time-zone-shifted production environment with a small Australian team and significant rights-holder coordination. For technical, broadcast operations, and engineering roles, the panel will dig into specific incidents you have resolved on air or close to it: a playout failure during a live cross, an OB van uplink that dropped, an SBS On Demand encoder that fell behind, a Dalet workflow that stalled mid-bulletin, a multilingual subtitling QC that broke close to a transmission window. Behaviourally, SBS panels respond well to candidates who take the institution seriously, demonstrate respect for the editorial chain of command, are honest about mistakes, can speak about the responsibility of working with public money, are visibly comfortable with multicultural and multilingual environments, and show genuine interest in the audience the role serves rather than a generic interest in 'media.' They respond poorly to commercial-broadcaster swagger, dismissiveness about regional, in-language, or First Nations content, casual treatment of editorial standards, contempt for the complaints process, name-dropping of executives, performative cultural awareness, and any sign that a candidate sees SBS as a stepping stone to a flashier commercial role. Expect a calm, professional, sometimes academic tone; expect to be asked your salary expectations early and to be told the relevant pay band openly under the Enterprise Agreement; expect at least one question about diversity, inclusion, and the SBS Reconciliation Action Plan; and expect a longer feedback loop than commercial employers because panel deliberation, reference checks, and pre-employment screening are documented in detail.

What SBS Looks For

  • Editorial integrity demonstrated through specific past behaviours: walking away from a weak story, correcting a published error promptly, refusing a source's improper condition, holding the line on a difficult publication decision, or accepting a complaint outcome with grace.
  • Audience-first thinking that shows up as concrete decisions about who the work serves: the in-language community listening to SBS Arabic or SBS Mandarin, the First Nations viewer of NITV, the SBS On Demand subscriber browsing world drama on a Sunday night, the Eurovision audience, the regional multicultural community, or the under-30 SBS digital reader.
  • Charter literacy: a working understanding of the SBS Act 1991, the SBS Codes of Practice, the difference between SBS and the ABC, the role of NITV as the dedicated First Nations broadcaster inside the SBS family, and the way the hybrid funding model (federal appropriation plus commercial revenue) shapes what the network can do.
  • Cultural and linguistic competence appropriate to the role: language fluency and certification (NAATI, CEFR) for in-language roles, demonstrated community accountability for NITV and First Nations roles, and a credible track record of engaging respectfully with diaspora communities for multicultural editorial roles.
  • Calm in high-stakes, high-scrutiny moments: live broadcast incidents, breaking news, election nights, federal Budget night, natural disasters, terror incidents, the Eurovision final, the FIFA World Cup, and the everyday reality that any editorial decision can become a national news story in its own right.
  • Genuine commitment to First Nations storytelling and to the SBS Reconciliation Action Plan, evidenced by past work, language skills, lived experience, or a credible plan for how you would build trust with First Nations communities; SBS takes the NITV mandate seriously and panels do not respond well to performative answers.
  • Respect for the unionised workplace and for the colleagues who bargain it: candidates who show familiarity with the MEAA and the CPSU, who treat the SBS Enterprise Agreement as a normal feature of working life, and who do not signal a preference for non-union or individual-contract arrangements perform better in interviews.
  • A long-term mindset: SBS hires for tenure, training is significant, and the institution is suspicious of candidates who appear to be using it as a short-term resume credential before moving to a streaming service, a commercial network, or a tech platform.

Frequently Asked Questions

Where is SBS headquartered, and where are most jobs located?
SBS's national headquarters is the purpose-built SBS broadcast centre at 14 Herbert Street, Artarmon, on Sydney's Lower North Shore, with a major secondary base in Melbourne (historically Federation Square, now in the inner-Melbourne creative precinct). Significant offices and broadcast facilities exist in Brisbane, Adelaide, Perth, Hobart, Canberra, and Darwin, supporting the SBS Audio language program network and NITV news bureaus, plus a smaller in-country footprint for regional First Nations content. Roles are advertised by location and most are tied to a specific office because of broadcast and production requirements; corporate, technology, digital, and SBS On Demand product and engineering roles are concentrated in Sydney (Artarmon) and Melbourne, language-program roles are typically based in Sydney and Melbourne with several in capital-city studios, and NITV roles operate across multiple offices with strong representation in Sydney and Brisbane.
How does SBS compensation compare to commercial Australian broadcasters and to the ABC?
Pay for most ongoing and fixed-term SBS roles is set by the SBS Enterprise Agreement, negotiated between the network and the MEAA (for editorial, production, and on-air staff) and the CPSU (for corporate and administrative staff). Bands and pay points sit broadly in line with the ABC and are typically below commercial-network benchmarks (Nine, Seven, News Corp, Paramount) and well below the major streaming platforms and US tech employers for comparable engineering and product roles. Senior journalism and producer salaries commonly land in the A$80,000 to A$150,000 range plus superannuation, senior management roles in the A$150,000 to A$300,000 range, and on-air talent is variable and individually negotiated. Compensation is offset by the SBS-nominated superannuation contribution, generous leave entitlements, salary packaging, professional development, and the genuine non-monetary value of working on a charter-bound multicultural broadcaster.
Does SBS sponsor work visas for overseas applicants?
The default expectation is that candidates already have the right to work in Australia (citizen, permanent resident, or eligible visa holder). SBS will sponsor a temporary skill shortage visa (subclass 482) or an Employer Nomination Scheme permanent visa (subclass 186) for genuinely hard-to-fill specialist roles, most commonly in technology and SBS On Demand engineering, in senior journalism, and in language-specialist positions where a specific community language combination is in short supply on the Australian labour market. Sponsorship is the exception rather than the rule, is decided on a role-by-role basis, and is weighed against the availability of qualified Australian-resident applicants. Always confirm sponsorship status with the recruiter during the first conversation rather than assuming.
What graduate, cadetship, and entry-level pathways does SBS offer?
SBS runs a small but well-regarded cadetship and emerging-talent program, most visible through the SBS News Cadetship for early-career journalists (with a strong track record of pathways for multilingual and multicultural reporters), the NITV Pathways program for First Nations content makers and journalists, the Emerging Writers' Initiative for First Nations and culturally diverse drama writers, and short-form internship partnerships with Australian universities and journalism schools. Competition is intense, intakes open in narrow windows aligned to the Australian academic calendar, and applications close quickly. SBS also runs structured production-trainee schemes that rotate participants through SBS, NITV, SBS Audio, and SBS On Demand teams.
How does SBS handle multilingual journalism roles, and what language combinations are most in demand?
SBS Audio is the most multilingual radio service in the world, broadcasting in more than 60 languages, and language-program journalists, presenters, producers, and contractors are central to the SBS workforce. Demand fluctuates with Australian migration patterns and emerging community needs; in recent cycles SBS has actively recruited for Mandarin, Cantonese, Vietnamese, Korean, Hindi, Punjabi, Tamil, Tagalog or Filipino, Arabic, Persian or Farsi, Dari, Pashto, Tigrinya, Amharic, Swahili, Spanish, Portuguese, and Ukrainian capability, alongside continued investment in long-established language services such as Italian, Greek, Maltese, German, Polish, Russian, and Croatian. Native or near-native fluency, demonstrated community trust, NAATI certification (where applicable), and Australian editorial-standards experience are the strongest combinations on a CV.
What is NITV, how does it sit inside SBS, and what should First Nations candidates expect?
NITV — National Indigenous Television — is the dedicated free-to-air channel for First Nations content in Australia and sits inside the SBS family, having been integrated into SBS in 2012. NITV operates with editorial independence on First Nations matters, is led by NITV-specific editorial leadership, and runs flagship programs including NITV News, Living Black, and The Point, alongside a substantial slate of commissioned First Nations drama and documentary. First Nations candidates should expect identified roles advertised under the special-measures provisions of the Racial Discrimination Act 1975 (which may restrict applications to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and require confirmation of Aboriginality consistent with the three-part working definition of descent, self-identification, and community acceptance), interview panels that include First Nations leaders, and an evaluation lens that explicitly weights cultural authority, community accountability, and the candidate's relationships with First Nations communities. Non-Indigenous candidates working alongside NITV should expect to be assessed on their cultural competence and on their understanding of story sovereignty and First Nations editorial protocols.
What does it mean that SBS broadcasts the Eurovision Song Contest, and is there a dedicated career path around it?
SBS has been the Australian broadcast rights holder for the Eurovision Song Contest for decades, and in recent years has been instrumental in Australia's status as a continuing participant in the Contest itself; the broadcast is one of the most recognisable pieces of the SBS brand. Eurovision is a small, intense, time-zone-shifted production: a core SBS team works with the European Broadcasting Union and the host broadcaster, travels to the host city for the live shows, and operates an Australian-facing presentation, commentary, and digital experience. Roles in this orbit include presenters and commentators (notably the long-running on-air talent associated with the broadcast), executive producers, social and digital producers, audience and partnership leads, and a rotating production crew. There is no permanent 'Eurovision team' as such; relevant SBS staff are seconded for the cycle and the work is highly competitive.
Is there an engineering and product career path at SBS On Demand?
Yes. SBS On Demand is one of Australia's major SVOD platforms and is supported by an in-house product, design, and engineering organisation that builds and operates the SBS On Demand apps for web, iOS, Android, smart TVs (Samsung, LG, Hisense, Sony, Apple TV, Chromecast, Roku in selected markets), and game consoles, the underlying CMS and metadata platform, the recommendation and personalisation systems, the analytics and experimentation stack, the live-streaming pipeline used for major events, and the DRM and rights-management workflows. The technology stack mixes cloud-native services on AWS and other providers, modern front-end frameworks, server-side rendering, video pipelines (HLS, DASH, DRM via Widevine, FairPlay, PlayReady), and CDN orchestration. SBS On Demand engineering and product compensation sits below US tech and major streaming benchmarks but is supported by the SBS Enterprise Agreement, public-broadcaster benefits, and the genuine appeal of working on a charter-bound multicultural streaming product.
How does SBS handle complaints, regulatory oversight, and political pressure, and how is that visible in the workplace?
SBS operates under the SBS Codes of Practice and the editorial framework of the SBS Charter, with independent complaint review by the SBS Ombudsman and external regulatory oversight by the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA). Federal funding is set on a triennial cycle and is approved by the government of the day, which means SBS, like the ABC, is structurally exposed to political pressure and funding-cycle uncertainty. Editorial criticism arrives through multiple channels: parliamentary committees (especially Senate Estimates), the SBS Board's editorial responsibilities, the SBS Ombudsman, the ACMA, formal complaints from members of the public and from named subjects, and the ordinary churn of media commentary including Mumbrella, AdNews, B&T, and Crikey. Inside the workplace this shows up as a strong culture of editorial review, rigorous source-and-document handling, structured cultural-protocol consultation for First Nations and culturally sensitive content, and a willingness to defend decisions in public and in formal forums; staff who join expecting a quiet life away from public scrutiny are often surprised.
Does SBS offer remote or hybrid work?
Broadcast operations, on-air, production, OB, and studio-based editorial roles are by definition tied to a physical location because of the equipment, the gallery, and the live transmission window. Corporate, technology, digital, content commissioning, and many news production roles operate on a hybrid model, generally requiring two to three days a week in the relevant SBS office, with the exact pattern set at the team level. Fully remote roles are uncommon and usually limited to specific specialist positions or to language-program contributors based outside the major capitals. Like the ABC, SBS has been deliberate about anchoring corporate teams to a regular in-office cadence post-pandemic, particularly at the Artarmon broadcast centre and the Melbourne base.
What is the SBS Charter, and why do interviewers keep referring to it?
The SBS Charter is set out in section 6 of the Special Broadcasting Service Act 1991 and defines the principal function of SBS as providing multilingual and multicultural radio, television, and digital media services that inform, educate, and entertain all Australians and, in doing so, reflect Australia's multicultural society. The Charter is the legal foundation of every editorial decision and every commissioning choice the network makes, and panel interviewers reach for it when they want to test whether a candidate understands the difference between a multicultural public broadcaster and a generalist one (the ABC), and between a public broadcaster and a commercial network. A working understanding of the Charter, of the SBS Codes of Practice that operationalise it, of the place of NITV inside the SBS family, and of the role of the Board and the Managing Director as editor-in-chief is expected from anyone applying to a content-making role.

Open Positions

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