Department Manager

We are looking for a strong candidate to serve as our first Department Manager to partner closely with our Leads, HR and Production to help grow and mentor our team.  The ideal candidate will have managerial experience in the games industry developing and nurturing career paths, helping drive performance management, establishing strong partnership with Leads across various disciplines, facilitating tough conversations when needed, being empathetic, and having a true knack and passion for guiding and mentoring others to succeed. We are open to hybrid or remote work environment.

• Work closely with the Leads across the development team in Art, Design and Engineering to help foster an environment of learning, growth and development.
• Conduct a regular cadence of 1 on 1’s to develop interpersonal rapport, give personal and workflow feedback, mentorship advice, and push team members to continually level up their skills.
• Serve as the bridge between the Leads and developers ensuring goals and development capabilities are clear.
• Partner closely with HR to drive employee initiatives, communications, performance management, coaching / counseling, and career development.
• Contribute to a culture of learning and growth by helping develop career paths and creating learning and training opportunities.
• Help drive the performance appraisal process, and monitor and review each team members progress on a regular basis.
• Partner with the Leads, Production and Recruiting to drive our staffing and hiring efforts for the development team.
• Foster a diverse and inclusive culture in which all team members feel supported and encouraged in risk-taking and creative growth.
• Work amongst all departments to help champion cross-departmental efforts.
• Take initiative to identify problems, establish facts, and propose solutions across the studio.
• Identify and initiate ways to foster connection, collaboration and team building among the various disciplines.

• 5+ years gaming industry experience
• 3+ of management experience
• Solid understanding of roles / levels across video game development departments
• Outstanding verbal and written communication skills
• Effective interpersonal skills, including having empathy and a calm demeanor
• Experience managing conflict
• Strong critical thinking and problem solving skills, with great attention to detail
• Capable of multitasking and managing several important items at once, without allowing anything to be lost in the process
• Results oriented with a “can do” attitude and willingness to take on additional responsibilities as needed
• Flexible and able to adapt to growing organization and deal with the Studio’s changing needs and priorities
• Love of video games

• Bachelor’s Degree in management or equivalent professional training
• Shipped at least 1 AAA title
• Experience managing people in hybrid workforce