Lead Development Director

Job Description

Lead Development Director, EA SPORTS

EA SPORTS is one of the leading sports entertainment brands in the world, with top-selling videogame franchises, award-winning interactive technology, fan programs, and cross-platform digital experiences. EA SPORTS creates connected experiences that ignite the emotion of sport through industry-leading sports video games, including EA SPORTS Madden NFL football, EA SPORTS FC soccer, EA SPORTS NHL® hockey, and EA SPORTS UFC.

As a Lead Development Director for EA Tiburon you will report into the Supervising Development Director and be accountable for overall execution of the project/full game, completed on time, quality & budget and owner of the risk registry. In close collaboration with Sr. Production Director, Creative Director, Technical Director and QV Project Owner and other partners, you will ensure the team has tools, processes & information in place to be successful and deliver against quality and business goals.

Leadership Responsibilities
• You will empower and foster an environment for teams to solve problems autonomously, and take ownership of their assigned work
• Be the main point of contact for escalation issues, listening to all sides of the problem and working with teams internally and studio-wide to resolve the situation.
• Create team communication plans and communicate progress of overall project plans to teams, partners and above.
• As a leader, you will inspire the team to operational excellence in all aspects of their work, as well as mentor and cultivate development directors within the project team and contribute to the overall operations community and succession plans.
• Develop strong working relationships with immediate team and key stakeholders.

Project Management Responsibilities
• You will be responsible for leading the team through the full project cycle and driving milestones and gate reviews, as well as follow up actions.
• You will validate and review sub-team project plans and analyze current pitfalls and shortcomings in project plans, and propose solutions or improvements for upcoming cycles.
• Formulate risk strategies for multiple domains or entire project to identify risks and all dependencies. Proactively set mitigation and contingency plans to minimize impact. Escalate risks when appropriate.
• Provide options and collaborate on decisions with key leaders around the balance between quality, time and cost.
• You will drive team and resource planning activities, anticipating skill gaps and organizational needs, and operationalizing solutions to meet the project's needs.
• Drive standard processes to be used across the project and identify project-wide improvements, while challenging the status quo.
• Manage budget, execute against approved financial plan while meeting project goals and provide accurate forecast of controllable R&D expenses, while looking for operational efficiencies.

Qualifications
• 8+ years of operations and leadership experience with the ability to manage directly and through influence a variety of stakeholders.
• In-depth knowledge of project operations acquired from 3+ years experience in project management on AAA game franchises or similar software development projects.
• Experience managing a large project or multiple projects where complex problems require analysis of situations and in-depth evaluation of multiple factors.
• Knowledge of project management methodologies and an understanding of when to use or adapt each one.

Jobcode: Reference SBJ-gpojb0-3-143-111-52-42 in your application.