UX / UI Design Manager - Sledgehammer

Job Description

Sledgehammer Games is looking for a UX/UI Design Manager (content team) to build and manage a new UI/UX team in Toronto. The successful candidate will become a founding member of our new team in Toronto. This role represents an exciting opportunity to help shape the future of UI/UX. The new UI/UX team will interact with stakeholders and partners across the business, working across the franchise rather than on projects specific to any single studio. The ideal candidate will be a person who can build effective relationships across the company, work with a variety of partners in a constructive manner and build and inspire a strong team as they deliver content that meets and exceeds franchise standards.

Your Mission

You will lead the conceptualization and design for the evolution of UI and UX ultimately setting best practice and making recommendations that will filter into all game releases. You will have a command of AAA console UI development, processes, and best practices. You will partner with stakeholders across Activision to define and conceptualize interfaces, then direct your team to translate them to production-level mock-ups.

We value a culture of collaboration and are seeking someone imaginative, skillful, and versatile to join our new team in Toronto. If you share a passion for developing groundbreaking content with a proven team, and have experience in AAA console games, then this may be the position you've been waiting for! Priorities can often change in a fast-paced environment like ours, so this role includes, but is not limited to, the following responsibilities:

Primary Responsibilities
• Work with SHG leadership and the recruitment team to build a highly effective and capable UI/UX team at our new Toronto location. The goal is to become a center of excellence within the business.
• Work with franchise leaders within other Activision studios to ensure UI/UX development coming from SHG Toronto fits with franchise needs.
• Work with the SHG COO and Director of Product Development to implement a structure and communication methods capable of delivering against objectives.
• Interpret feedback from CUR and playtests to make recommendations that will inform the future direction for UI/UX within the Call of Duty franchise.
• Communicate progress and resolution of issues with the ability to set guidelines for peers and support teams.
• Work with production to create and execute against a realistic plan, focusing on both short and long-term needs.
• Represent the team's work at studio all-hands and publisher greenlight meetings when required.
• Build effective working relationships with key creative and production stakeholders across SHG and the wider business, helping to ensure consistency of output from the studio.
• Ensure the consistent visual style from initial mock-ups to final product.
• Work with UX designers to determine the functionality and features of the UI and translate high-level gameplay ideas into visually functional UI designs
• Create and uphold impeccable documentation.
• Promote the studio's 'One Sledgehammer' philosophy, to help ensure members of the Toronto team feel truly part of the wider studio despite direction coming from across the wider business. Proactively raise any issues regarding team cohesion with studio Leadership.

Previous Experience
• 8+ years of experience as a UI Artist and/or UI/UX design, preferably in console/PC and AAA games.
• Exceptional knowledge and experience with typography, graphic design, motion design, alphabetical systems and iconography.
• Exceptional proficiency in Photoshop and Illustrator
• An egoless attitude that welcomes feedback and criticism, and enjoys working in a collaborative, iterative, and agile process.
• An analytical approach and the ability to break down complex problems into consumable and relevant pieces for others.
• Experience taking major AAA console and PC games from concept to completion.
• Experience monitoring and evolving a live service title.
• Exceptional verbal, written, and interpersonal communications skills.
• Experience working on projects involving multiple internal and external partners, and with established franchises where close collaboration with publishing owners is required.

Extra Points
• Motion graphics design experience
• Understanding of games creation tools and middleware
• Understanding of visual programming
• A creative thinker who feels comfortable experimenting and presenting approaches and solutions that help push the edge of what is possible with UI.
• Interested in technical aspects of the UI Art

Jobcode: Reference SBJ-rjvzze-3-145-201-71-42 in your application.