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Development Director, The Sims 4

At Maxis, we thrive on outrageous thinking. It’s the fuel that inspires the best games in the world. We’re innovators and great storytellers. But it’s not just about amazing your peers – it’s about amazing yourself. Take risks. Collaborate with brilliant minds and dare to dream big. Together, we can change the way millions play every day.

You will be responsible for managing a development team. This can range from artists, designers, software engineers, QA and other production staff. Development Directors are the keepers of the project schedule and play a vital role in successfully moving the development team from one project phase to the next while ensuring a strong focus on quality, collaboration and communication. You will partner closely with producers (our product owners) to ensure that they are managing the project on time, to quality, and within budget

Leadership:

• Builds and evolves an effective team; identifies resourcing needs, provides challenges and developmental opportunities to ensure that all employees reach their potential.
• Builds and maintains effective working relationships with the immediate team and those outside of the immediate team that have an effect on the successful completion of the project.
• Provides line management to employees across disciplines within a single project team.
• Maintains regular communication with the project team and coordinates dependencies with external partners.

Responsibilities:

• Collaborate with project stakeholders to establish and assign tasks from defined project goals.
• Partner with production to manage scope and quality.
• Determine the resource requirements to meet the tasks and/or project requirements
• Proactively assesses and mitigates risk for the team’s assigned scope.
• Tracks progress of team’s deliverables and provides regular status reporting and capacity plan updates.
• Actively partners with product owners, tech and craft leads to resolve problems that surfaces for the team.
• Run stand ups and sprint planning meetings effectively
• Work with subject matter experts of your team and ensure all workflow is clearly defined, processes are documented, and staff trained in expectations on the workflow.
• Manages career development of direct reports, including development of individual development plans, and conducting regular one-on-ones.

Creative Qualities:

• Prioritizing and resolving issues through creative problem solving skills.
• Recognizing and balancing priorities of eliminating the root causes of problems.

Requirements:

• Minimum of 5 years of project management or team leadership experience in a software development environment.
• Education requirement University degree Bachelors or equivalent professional experience;
• A good understanding of game development, interdisciplinary dependencies and associated development risks.
• Effective communicator and listener .
• Experience in various project management methodologies such as Waterfall and Agile
• Ability to work in a dynamic and collaborative team environment.
• Some people management experience is preferred.
• Familiarity with JIRA.