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Art Outsourcing Manager

Amber is seeking a skilled Art Outsourcing Manager to work with external developers to create high quality assets.

This position requires strong art and technical skills, plus project and resource management skills. The Art Outsourcing Manager will work with the internal Art team leadership to help manage the assets being developed by external vendors.

You love connecting the right external partners for the project and building long lasting relations. You have a zoomed-out view of production yet can hold your own with the creative team.

Additionally, the Art Outsource Manager will review the technical and creative quality of assets as they progress through the pipeline and provide timely, creative, and technical feedback to the external vendors. The ideal candidate has in-depth experience creating 3D game art and is technically inclined with excellent feedback and organizational skills.

Responsibilities

• Coordinate the production of art assets through 3rd party vendors, including concept, environment, character, vehicle, and animation assets.
• Monitor external vendor submissions to ensure that quality is both consistent and high as well as adheres to technical specifications
• Own the quality control over all incoming art assets, providing detailed feedback and approvals to the vendor in order to deliver quality assets to the development team.
• Work with Art leadership to generate and provide feedback to external vendors
• Work with the art leads, designers, and production to develop and maintain the outsourcing production schedule.
• Use commercial and proprietary software to review incoming Art assets at various stages of production
• Articulate our asset creation process and provide critical feedback to external vendors
• Provide detailed paint overs with notes where written feedback is not sufficient
• Establish and maintain relationships with external vendors.
• Ensure clean and consistent documentation of the art production pipeline.
• Establish tests for vetting new outsourcing contracts, plus review and rate incoming test assets.
• Create reasonable budgets and costs for outsourced art.
• Manage the archiving of delivered assets within the studio storage system.
• Monitor contractor submissions to ensure that quality is both consistent and high, and adheres to technical specifications.
• Act as the primary contact for communication and coordination with external vendors.
• Motivate and drive outsourcing partners, ensuring that schedules are adhered to and that established deliverables are made.
• Develop processes for review, feedback, and approval of delivered assets.
• Create and maintain pipeline and workflow documentation to minimize re-submissions and keep asset quality high.
• Proactively scope and forecast production resource needs and leverage external partners where and when needed.
• Stay ahead of production hurdles and alert leadership of potential red flags.
• Test and onboard vendors to ensure healthy relations and sustainable productions
• Source vendors, review bids and milestone deliverables
• Package and facilitate vendor pilot tests
• Maintain vendor database

Desired Skills and Experience

• Experience with 3ds Max, Maya, Photoshop and a modern game engines
• Excellent communication and writing skills
• Solid understanding of Art creation process and pipeline in relation to game development
• Solid organizational skills with a solid understanding of asset budgets and asset management
• 5+ professional years of development experience including 2+ years of experience managing art pipelines.
• Strong understanding of Art fundamentals, color theory and anatomy
• Previous experience as an outsourcing manager or similar production role.
• Demonstrable competence in problem solving, with an ability to overcome any resistance, setbacks, and obstacles that may arise.
• Proficient with developing schedules and setting milestones and associated deliverables.
• Proficient with project management software.
• Goal oriented and driven, with strong leadership and interpersonal skills.
• Understand the game industry and the art-creation process.
• Ability to quickly adapt to change and work effectively under pressure.
• Maintaining and managing a network of art contractors
• Identifying and reaching out to potential art contractors.
• Maintaining the art contractor database.

Personal Traits

• Passionate and curious about games and game development
• Strong interpersonal communication skills in English (both written and spoken)
• Excellent organizational skills, with an ability to prioritize important projects
• Thorough understanding of project management as it relates to PC / Console games
• Experience with common video game production methodologies, workflows, pipelines and tools (e.g. SCRUM, Kanban, etc.)
• You strive to build long term relationships through honest two-way communication and trust, and believe in a philosophy of practical and strategic planning to ensure healthy and sustainable production.
• Desire to work in a fast-paced, high growth, start-up company environment

What we offer:

• A fun and dynamic industry where you can make a difference.
• Professional and friendly work environment.
• Awesome and talented colleagues.
• Support from all your teammates.
• Access to training and learning programs.