Electronic Arts

WE WANT YOUR BRAINS…

PopCap is looking for brainy, skillful people with a passion for making the world’s best games. What’s in it for you? A super-fun environment, rewarding work, and great perks.

We are seeking a Lead Development Director to join the Plants vs. Zombies franchise, contributing to the continued development of Plants vs. Zombies 3. In this role, you will work as an operational leader, partnering across disciplines to deliver high-quality features and releases for a globally loved mobile game.

Role Overview

The Lead Development Director plays a critical role in successfully moving the development team forward while ensuring a strong focus on efficiency, predictability, collaboration and communication. This is a key leadership role, directly managing the Development Director discipline as well as team-wide processes and solutions for how and when we deliver value to our players and the business. This role will report to the Head of Studio Operations.

Responsibilities

• Lead and manage a team of Development Directors. The Lead DD sets the standard for operational excellence, motivates and drives the discipline, and sets clear expectations and goals for their team.

• Own and drive all operational aspects of the project, including establishing and optimizing development frameworks and process, reporting, risk management, capacity planning, resource management, organizational design, budget, and gate reviews.

• Partner directly with the Game Director and other discipline leaders to ensure health and excellence across all day to day operations and communications.

• Proactively remove roadblocks, resolve conflicts, push decision making, and drive continuous improvement and efficiency in how the team collaborates and executes across all disciplines.

• Be the point of contact for escalation issues, listen to all sides of a challenge and work with teams for quick and effective resolutions.

• Own and optimize the relationships and coordination with partners, vendors, and central EA teams to ensure the project team is supported in their goals.

• Identify risks and dependencies. Proactively execute mitigation and contingency plans to minimize impact.

• Provide clear and concise reporting inside and outside of the organization to keep everyone informed of progress, risks, and mitigations.

• Drive team and resource planning activities, anticipating skills, gaps and organizational needs.

• Drive standard processes to be used across the project, while challenging the status quo.

• Evaluate and lead change management initiatives where applicable.

Qualifications

Required

• 7+ years of operations, development, or production leadership experience on an internal game development team.

• Proven experience leading 100+ sized distributed organizations.

• 4+ years of experience successfully managing multiple direct reports.

• Experience leading a game’s development from early production through launch, and managing a successful global live service.

• Expert knowledge of project management methodologies, processes, and tools (Jira, Flow/Shotgrid), and an understanding of how and when to use or adapt each.

• Strong general communications, proactivity, and visible leadership capabilities.

• Able to shift effectively between strategic and tactical work.

• Strong emotional intelligence, resilience, adaptability, and effectiveness in ambiguous, complex, and challenging situations.

Preferred

• Passion for mobile free-to-play games and a strong understanding of the market.

• Experience working with development partners and vendors internationally.