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Technical Director

Job Summary:

We have a fantastic opportunity for an experienced Tech Director to join the leadership group in the Square Enix Mobile team! Based in London, the team are responsible for producing titles in conjunction with external development partners based on Square Enix’s hit franchises as well as external IP.

The successful candidate will be the key internal technical stakeholder across a portfolio of games being published by the London studio. You will work closely with project stakeholders at all levels while nurturing the relationships with our partner studios to ensure key goals are met.

You will have ultimate responsibility for collaborating with external studios to lock the feasibility of feature set, technical direction and solutions for each project and optimise the game standards for projects in development.

Requirements

Key Deliverables:

Working as part of a team, you will be the technical stakeholder for all our projects, and as such you will be involved in every part of the development process:

• Prioritising people first, adapting approach to get the best out of our team and give them the required support.
• Proactively seeking issues within the team and taking on initiatives to improve overall culture and team wellbeing.
• Working with studios to find the appropriate technical direction.
• Sign off on technical designs and documentation.
• Ensuring gameplay performance and quality are the highest standards.
• Performing technical due diligence on potential studio partners.
• Setting studios technical milestones.
• Reviewing technical milestone components.
• Identifying trends and understanding future quality standards to ensure titles in development will be competitive upon release.
• Working closely with partner development studios to ensure their technical staff, pipelines, solutions and process are adequate to support each game vision.
• Contributing technical design elements to executive presentations.
• Contributing to internal concepts and presentations.
• Developing and fostering relationships with service providers, middleware & hardware partners.
• Supporting internal tool and IT requirements.
  
  

You will also help in keeping the relationship with developers as positive and productive as possible. This means working to build an honest and respectful relationship with them, providing meaningful feedback to their performance, and ensuring that they understand our development priorities.

Key Stakeholders:
Directors of the Mobile Publishing Team, CTO and Technical Director Square Enix Montreal, general mobile team

Knowledge & Experience:

Essential:

Must have extensive hands-on technical leadership experience within the video game industry on multiple globally-launched titles (at least three free-to-play titles) on iOS & Android

Experience working on free-to-play, live titles throughout all stages of their lifecycle.

Created technical guidelines and other relevant documentation.

Demonstrated a concept’s evolution from rough ideas to final product.

Understand best practices and the different phases associated with game production (concept, pre-production, production etc.)

Excellent knowledge of free-to-play principles, in particular live operations and GAAS.

Desirable:

Worked on several high-profile titles.

Experienced with globally-renowned IP.

Worked with external development teams previously.

Competencies, Skills & Attributes:

Essential:

Values-driven with a meaningful investment in representation, equality, diversity and inclusion.

Thorough understanding of different game genres on mobile platforms.

Identifying issues with technical direction & performance at an early stage and the ability to share feedback which can steer the team back on track.

Ability communicate quality requirements and feedback on game performance, optimisation, backend support and live content pipelines.

Motivated and passionate with great soft skills.

Team player and ability to build relationships.

Ability to understand and consider different points of view.

Ability to work with direction from project stakeholders.

An eye for detail and highly organised.

Excellent written and spoken communication.

Able to convey complex instructions and direction with clarity.

Highly creative problem solver and comfortable working in a performance led culture.

Desirable:

Hands on experience on games built in Unity and other leading middleware engine solutions.

Ability to contribute to game pitch decks.

Other:

Passport and the willingness to travel (domestic and overseas) when required.

Must be passionate about games.

Must understand what makes a good game so special.

Our goal at Square Enix is to hire, retain, develop and promote the best talent, regardless of age, gender, race, religious, belief, sexual orientation or physical ability.

Our pledge to D&I

At Square Enix we believe in the importance of being a diverse and global company, and we stand firmly together against any forms of injustice, intolerance, harassment or discrimination. In our effort to create a truly diverse workforce, we pledge to continue to raise awareness in every step of the employee experience, from recruitment to promotions to ensure equal opportunities for all. One of our goals is to champion diversity in games and at work and work together to inspire real change.

Learning and education around D&I will be a key element for us to continue to grow as an organization. With unconscious bias training, D&I workshops and a variety of initiatives to give our employees the opportunity to be heard and be part of that change to achieve real equality. We need all our efforts to continue to build our culture of inclusion and equality.

We are also proud to partner with UKIE's Raise the Game pledge, BAME in Games and Women in Games, to name a few.

Covid-19 remote working

Square Enix are committed to keeping our employees safe. We are listening closely to government guidelines, and this role will be based remotely until the company sees fit to return to the office. This role will be based in our Blackfriars Studio in London, upon return.