Development Director

Job Description

Development Director, External Development Intelligence (XDI)
Locations: Hyderabad, India

About EA and External Development Intelligence:

Electronic Arts Inc. is a leading global interactive entertainment software company. EA delivers games, content and online services for Internet-connected consoles, personal computers, mobile phones and tablets.
XDI's purpose is to accelerate development by identifying the world's best external partners, ensuring successful engagements, and sharing industry knowledge.As part of EA Create, we search the globe for trusted external partners to work with EA Studio game teams and central technology teams. We are a central team that owns EA's due diligence evaluation process and risk management process. We support multiple disciplines, including co-dev, porting, art, animation, cinematics, UX-UI, engineering, and audio.

Key Responsibilities:
• Partner evaluations and due diligence reporting using XDI's risk management framework.
• Strategic partner portfolio management including regular check-ins and on-site assessments with established partners to ensure ongoing trust and viability.
• As a key partner in EA's Game Development Framework, we support a portfolio of internal game teams and central tech teams by consulting on external development strategy, recommending partners, providing partner risk assessments, and occasionally helping with issue resolution.
• Collaboration with a broad cross section of central teams including Legal, Security, Audit, Global Strategic Sourcing, Finance, Compliance, and other central roles to ensure clear process and program management of EA's requirements for working with external partners.

Business Partnerships:
• XDI provides consultation to EA external development strategy. As a Development Director, you will be a dedicated point of contact for both internal game team and external partners. One must be well versed at evaluating development and operational risks, issue resolution, and have a high degree of integrity when it comes to conducting oneself with outside key partners.
• Development Directors share critical knowledge about our partners with XDI, other Business Development groups, and teams across the company to ensure those working with our partners access to the information they need to make key decisions.

Experience & Capabilities:
• You will report to the Development Director of XDI, as part of the EA Create organization.
• You are having minimum of 10+ years of industry experience.
• Priority given to individuals with a background in full pipeline game production.
• Must have experience interfacing with external partners. Our team strikes a fine balance between advocacy for our partners, both internal and external, and conducting risk evaluations to ensure EA's IP is protected. Candidates can do both.
• Ability to think and act globally. We interact with EA teams and external partners from all over the globe. We expect our team members to conduct themselves with integrity and embrace cultural differences, value diverse opinions, and do their part to promote an inclusive development environment.
• This role requires objective decision-making, perform without direct authority, and excellent collaboration ability with diverse teams and partners.
• Lifelong learner who is inquisitive and enjoys knowledge acquisition as much as knowledge sharing. Should have a degree of comfort with public speaking, delivering presentations/panels, and facilitating brainstorming sessions.
• Game development experience as a Producer, Development Director, or Project Manager is desirable.
• Generalists with enough knowledge to be versatile across all core development disciplines are highly sought.
• Experience in centralized positions such as studio operations, publishing, licensing, program management, business development is transferable for this role.
• You will travel on-site to visit your partners on occasion and while often you will travel with other XDI team members or EA game team members there are times you will be asked to travel alone. Must have a degree of comfort with business travel and everything that comes with it (expense reports, airports, time zone changes, etc.). On average, XDI team members do one international trip (1 week+/- duration) and 2-3 short domestic trips a quarter.

Jobcode: Reference SBJ-rzbz97-3-140-242-165-42 in your application.