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Development Director

A leader in creating deep and engaging experiences on PC and mobile, Jagex was founded in 2001 and is today one of the UK’s biggest and most respected video game developers and publishers.

Famed for its flagship MMOs RuneScape and Old School RuneScape, Jagex has welcomed more than 260million player accounts to its world and created a $1bn lifetime franchise revenue. Today the RuneScape franchise exists beyond running games in live operations; our titles are living games that connect and inspire millions of players, with content and experiences both inside and outside of inexhaustible game worlds.

Both RuneScape and Old School RuneScape, on PC and mobile, offer ever-evolving, highly-active worlds and our community-focussed development ethos empowers players to have a real say in how each game is shaped.

Jagex is expanding and extending its portfolio with fresh franchise titles, new IP and, in 2018 launched Jagex Partners, delivering third-party publishing and operational services exclusively for the living games of the future.

Jagex employs more than 400 people at its Cambridge headquarters and is on the hunt for talented people to work across the business to help the company to achieve yet another year of record growth and player satisfaction.

You are a senior member of the leadership team, working closely with the games discipline leadership, craft leadership and other key project stakeholders. You will help us establish production direction and strategy to ensure successful delivery of several initiatives on time, to quality and within budget.

Before production starts you carry out detail analysis of the initiative requirements, to work out project milestones, develop the project schedule, deadlines, determine resource needs and play a vital role in successfully moving the development team from one project phase to the next.

You will be player, product, and quality focused, leading by example, developing trust and respect amongst the team. You will support and improve planning, development, and release processes on a continuous basis to meet product vision and quality goals.

As part of the development it will be vitally important that the right priorities are set to create clarity and focus for the team, supporting their key objectives, monitoring, tracking, and reporting progress.

Liaising closely with internal stakeholders, cross-functional teams within the studio, and external partners, you will ensure key initiatives and dependencies are tracked, reported, and delivered.

Partnering closely with the Producers and Executive Producer, you will be a motivator, able to leverage your depth of production knowledge, best practices to the benefit of the team.

Key Duties Include:

• Partnering with team leadership to create effective strategic project plans across one or more major projects.
• Responsible for the production aspects of game development, including the creation of development frame works, processes, reporting, risk management, capacity planning, resource management and the games budget.
• Owns all project management aspects of game development, ensuring on time and on budget delivery.
• Makes strategic decisions, taking into consideration known information about talent, costs, and delivery dates. Also balancing tactical, strategic planning and thinking; expands beyond the tactical needs of a current single project when making decisions about people, technology, and partners.
• Work closely with the Executive Producer, Product Directors, and Product Marketing to develop the years budgets and roadmaps, understands, champions, and translate the product vision to the team and all cross-functional stakeholders.
• Develop, maintain and publish project KPI’s, that track project quality, delivery and predictability, communication with team and key stakeholders to provide project status updates. Regularly monitors quality metrics with team leads and takes corrective actions.
• Ensure the team has the best organizational structure, processes and practices that allow them to produce high quality work efficiently on time and on budget.
• Drive efficiencies and new ways of thinking with a goal of reducing waste and increasing predictability.
• Support the scaling of development via outsourcing, develop capacity plans, budgets, processes, and tracking.
• Work with line managers and craft leads, assessing skills requirements for current project and next.
• Monitor, Measure and Mitigate all risks, effectiveness of dev initiatives, medium to high level org risks, and high-level financial risks that can help the team deliver the best possible game.
• Help the team create clear Roles & Responsibilities, develop RACI matrixes for initiatives.
• Coaching and mentoring future development directors, project managers and producers in the team.
• Develop rich relationships and partnerships with the Dev Team, cross-functional company-wide teams.
• Identifies, creates, and fosters superior information exchange systems enabling all team members to feel part of the same location.
• Applies best practices to create an environment for high-performance teams; ensures proper training is conducted to help drive success.
• Identifies and leads large collaborative efforts across multiple teams/initiatives.
• Conduct regular, effective retrospectives and post-mortem reviews.
• Ensures organizational, leadership, or strategy changes are well documented and communicated.
• Evaluates and adapts job roles to keep employees motivated and interested, while ensuring green housing and succession opportunities are available.
• Champions standards developed by the Executive Producer for the team and supports overall team health. Drive team cultural changes.
• Actively participates and contributes to change across the larger studio!

Essential Requirements:

• Recent and proven project management experience within a game development environment.
• Demonstrable track record in game software delivery projects.
• Excellent understanding of game development cycle from inception to ship.
• A good understanding of various project management methodologies.
• Places the projects priorities and teams welfare above all else.
• Ability to inspire, influence and communicate effectively at all levels.

- Flexible Working

- Bonus Scheme

- Private Health Care

- Gym Membership

- Monthly Energy Allowance

- Generous Pension Contributions

- Life Insurance

- Free Cycle Repair

- Income Protection

- Dental Plan

- Free Fruit and Drinks

- Subsidised Canteen

Feel like you fit this role, but don’t meet all the requirements? We strive for fresh perspectives, so as long as you can demonstrate how your attitude and other abilities might make up for any gaps we would welcome your application!

Jagex are an equal opportunities employer and positively encourages applications from suitably qualified and eligible candidates regardless of sex, race, disability, age, sexual orientation, gender reassignment, marriage or civil partnership, pregnancy or maternity, religion or belief.