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Senior Art Outsourcing Manager
3 years ago
Pocket Gems seeks to build the greatest mobile games and most compelling interactive entertainment in the world. That’s the mission our founders began with, in an apartment above a pizza shop back in 2009, and it continues to inspire us today. Since then, we’ve grown to over 200 people in San Francisco, and with $155 million in backing from Sequoia Capital and Tencent, we’re constantly breaking new ground in mobile entertainment.
Our products have been downloaded over 500 million times by players around the world and have generated over $1 billion in bookings. In recent years, we’ve launched Episode, a mobile storytelling network and platform, and War Dragons, a visually stunning 3D real-time strategy game.
As our community of players continues to grow, we’re committed to building diverse and inclusive environments across our teams, and in our games.
As a Senior Art Outsourcing Manager for War Dragons you will ensure art assets from external vendors consistently meet War Dragon’s visual quality, style, technical specifications and deadlines. For our existing pipelines your wealth of knowledge should help our existing art outsourcing engagements become more efficient and deliver higher quality art. As new projects develop, you will be a founding member of those teams, ensuring that we can effectively outsource the high quality art we need within our timelines and scope.
With your experience as either a lead or senior outsourcing manager, you should be able to choose the right vendors for new projects, maintain partnership, help found brand new outsourcing pipelines, maintain pace and quality and bring clarity to the production process, then drive those pipelines to artistic and production excellence.
What We’ve Accomplished:
- Actively developing multiple prototypes of which we will be moving into production on at least one.
- The Dragons Art Team recently shipped the Eclipse Winter Season which featured 6 dragons, 8 dragon riders and the brand new Cosmic Orrey turret!
- Over the past 2 years the War Dragons art team has been actively working towards making a diverse, inclusive cast of Dragon Riders to pair with our great dragon designs.
- War Dragons has been delighting our loyal fan base for over 7 years with innovative designs and a vibrant community of players.
What You’ll Do:
- Found outsourcing pipelines for a brand new project for multiple and varied types of assets.
- Mentor team members by providing insights and guidance to help them grow in their own field.
- Define art outsourcing standards that meet or exceed team specifications, balancing deadlines and resources with style and quality requirements.
- Be the primary point of contact, communicating the Director's vision to external studios to help them create art of the highest quality.
- Own art asset review process with off-site vendors, giving clear daily feedback on art assets they are responsible for.
- Use Photoshop, Z-Brush and Maya to correct graphic and animation errors.
- Collaborate with the internal art team to define the aesthetic style, art creation best practices and processes to external vendors.
- Monitor quality and technical standards for external studios and individual artists.
- Responsible for improving the art production pipeline between internal and external productions.
- Identify potential problems in the art pipeline and work with team leadership to proactively solve them.
What You Bring to the Team:
- At least 5 years of game development experience as an Outsourcing Manager
- Experience founding 3D outsourcing pipelines for shipped games.
- Previous experience managing external vendors
- Asset management experience required
- Good grasp of art fundamentals: anatomy, color, lighting, perspective, environments.
- Proven technical character pipeline knowledge, from modeling, rigging and animation.
- Shipped a minimum of 2 exceptional games or interactive media titles
- Please have a portfolio of Art Feedback available for review
- Maya and Zbrush expertise
Extra Gems For:
- Familiarity with Shotgun, Basecamp, and Jira project management software.
- Project Management Experience
- Solid 2D and 3D art background
- Ability to art direct when the situation calls for it
Read more about what we’ve been up to!
At Pocket Gems, we're building teams that value originality, inclusivity, and accountability. While we believe we offer competitive perks, such as annual bonuses, unlimited PTO, 401k matching, and a generous benefits package, we hope to engage with talent based on our core values .
Pocket Gems is an equal opportunity employer. We do not discriminate based on race, color, ethnicity, ancestry, national origin, religion, sex, gender, gender identity, gender expression, sexual orientation, age, disability, veteran status, genetic information, marital status or any legally protected status.
Pursuant to the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance, we will consider for employment qualified applicants with arrest an d conviction records.
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