Manager, External Development Intelligence

Job Description

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 and talented 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 an essential 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.

Team Related:
• The XDI team works in a mostly distributed fashion. We have members in Redwood Shores (California), Seattle (Washington), and Vancouver (British Columbia), Orlando (Florida) and Shanghai (China)
• We work with team members and partners around the globe. Our work is conducted using Zoom, email, Slack, and project management tools.
• Early morning or evening calls and travel (when possible) are a reality for this role as we work with global partners and teams. That said, we are highly encouraged to work toward work life balance and to manage capacity in a way that supports this goal.
• Our team members are self-directed with an ability to quickly surface the right information at the right time to those who need it.

Business Partnerships:
• XDI manages EA's Strategic Partner portfolio. As a manager, you will be a dedicated contact for a subset of this portfolio. Managers 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 essential partners.
• Managers share important 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 essential decisions.

Experience & Capabilities:
• Experience working with external partners. Our team strikes a fine balance between advocacy for our partners, and conducting risk evaluations to ensure EA's IP is protected.
• Think and act globally. We work with EA teams and external partners from all over the globe. We expect our team members to conduct themselves with high integrity and embrace cultural differences, value diverse opinions, and do their part to promote an inclusive development environment.
• We are looking for objective decision-making, influence 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. Have a degree of comfort with public speaking, delivering presentations/panels, and facilitating brainstorming sessions.
• Game development experience as a Producer, Development Manager, or Project Manager is desirable.
• Generalists with knowledge across all core game development disciplines are highly sought.
• Experience in centralized positions such as studio operations, publishing, licensing, program management, business development are 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 may travel alone. Have a degree of comfort with business travel and everything that comes with it (expense reports, airports, time zone changes). On average, XDI team members do one international trip (1 week+/- duration) and 2-3 short domestic trips a quarter.

XDI Team Values:
• Collaborative team players.
• Ethical, fair, objective decision makers.
• Support and solution focused.
• Think and act globally.
• Work life balance is essential to our success.
• Self-directed with inner drive.
• Influence without ego.
• Passion and enthusiasm.

Reporting:

You will report to the Director of External Development Intelligence, as part of the EA Create organization.

Locations:

Location preference is close to a major EA production location for occasional facetime with game teams. Possible locations include:
• Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
• Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
• Montreal, Quebec, Canada
• Los Angeles, California, USA
• San Francisco, California, USA
• Seattle, Washington, USA
• Orlando, Florida, USA
• Gildford, United Kingdom
• Stockholm, Sweden
• Shanghai, China
• Remote

We love to celebrate our great perks like comprehensive health and benefit packages, tuition reimbursement, 401k with company match, of course, free video games and more!

Jobcode: Reference SBJ-dywmmp-3-133-108-241-42 in your application.