Development Director II - Sandbox

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.

 

Finding great talent and supporting our studios to be the best place for people to do their best work is central to our philosophy. This is the principle behind our newly formed Seattle Studio focusing on open-world action-adventure games and pioneering next generation emergent storytelling. Join us to pursue your passion to craft unique, groundbreaking and inclusive games that empower players to generate incredible stories of heroic adventure. 

 

Become a foundational part of an ambitious, respectful and diverse team as we are looking for a Development Director responsible for driving collaborative game development strategy across multiple feature teams and delivering a successful experience.

Making games is unpredictable, and we're all in it together. Development Directors are our drivers, listening and working with all our experts to find a way through. Development Directors determine the “how” for the team and are responsible for ensuring the team is focused on the priorities identified by leadership while maintaining continuous alignment during development.

As a Development Director over the “Sandbox” pillar of the game, you will lead and support multiple cross disciplinary features while driving individual disciplines’ day to day yourself and through junior Development Directors. You will collaborate with team members and leadership to create clear, unified, and properly prioritized goals and facilitate the execution of those goals. You will be responsible for ensuring a matrix of expectations and requirements are accounted for and met throughout development. Reporting to the Director of Product Development, your role places you at the helm of a largescale pillar of the game that encompasses the merging of Environment and Sandbox development. You will work with a range of team members, such as Designers, Engineers, and Artists. Your work will be critical to bringing cohesion, visibility, and productivity to your assigned pillar of ownership.

Responsibilities:

• Create, manage, and execute the project roadmap for assigned areas of responsibility ranging from gameplay to content, working closely with the Director of Product Development and rest of the development team to maintain high level alignment during project lifecycle
• Work with disciplinary leadership to understand their goals, ensuring the project roadmap, granular feature strategies, and development plans accomplish their needs while adhering to larger project goals
• Identify resource needs and project risks through continually evaluated scope/capacity planning and engage in identifying solutions
• In collaboration with the rest of the production team, take responsibility for production processes and health for assigned area of responsibility, continually ensuring that the team’s infrastructure and rituals support healthy, productive outputs
• Manage one or more direct reports in area of assigned responsibility
• Inspire fresh thinking and new ideas to ensure the team has the structure and processes that empowers them to innovate within our games and our development methodology.
• Communicate the development plan to internal and external stakeholders.
• You will also have a passion and empathy for solving people's problems and building happy, motivated teams.

 

Qualifications: 

• 5+ years working with game development teams in a Development Director or Senior Production role.
• Experience managing diverse team across different time zones and locations
• The ability to talk across all levels of an organization
• Experience of agile project management processes
• Experience obtaining insights and developing strategies through analytical metrics-driven analysis and design experimentation.
• Experience using KPIs to set product success goals, monitoring of the product and informing necessary changes to the game.
• Team player that brings excitement and enthusiasm to work each day.
• Strong communication and writing skills, with experience preparing and presenting decks to various stakeholders.

Ceci ne s’applique pas au Québec.

COMPENSATION AND BENEFITS

The base salary ranges listed below are for the defined geographic market pay zones in these locations. If you reside outside of these locations, a recruiter will advise on the range and benefits for your specific location.

EA has listed the base salary ranges it in good faith expects to pay applicants for this role in the locations listed, as of the time of this posting. Pay offered will be determined based on numerous relevant business and candidate factors including, for example, education, qualifications, certifications, experience, skills, geographic location, and business or organizational needs.


BASE SALARY RANGES

• California (depending on location e.g. Los Angeles vs. Sacramento):
º $161,100 - $239,700 USD Annually
• New York (depending on location e.g. Manhattan vs. Buffalo):
º $142,900 - $239,700 USD Annually
• Jersey City, NJ :
º $187,400 - $239,700 USD Annually
• Colorado (depending on location e.g. Denver vs. Colorado Springs):
º $153,100 - $206,200 USD Annually
• Washington (depending on location e.g. Seattle vs. Spokane):
º $142,900 - $230,000 USD Annually
• British Columbia (depending on location e.g. Vancouver vs. Victoria):
º $133,400 - $193,200 CAN Annually

Base salary is just one part of the overall compensation at EA. In the US, we offer a package of benefits including paid time off (3 weeks per year to start), 80 hours per year of sick time, 16 paid company holidays per year, 10 weeks paid time off to bond with baby, medical/dental/vision insurance, life insurance, disability insurance, and 401(k) to regular full-time employees. Certain roles may also be eligible for bonus and equity. For British Columbia, we offer a package of benefits including vacation (3 weeks per year to start), 10 days per year of sick time, paid top-up to EI/QPIP benefits up to 100% of base salary when you welcome a new child (12 weeks for maternity, and 4 weeks for parental/adoption leave), extended health/dental/vision coverage, life insurance, disability insurance, retirement plan to regular full-time employees. Certain roles may also be eligible for bonus and equity.