Lead Producer

Blackbird Interactive; Vancouver; Hybrid; CAD 90,000 - 120,000; Full time

Job summary

A creative game studio is seeking a Lead Producer to oversee the delivery of a large IP across multiple platforms. The role entails managing project scope, quality, and risk, while collaborating with internal and external teams. Required qualifications include a minimum of 8 years in a producer or project manager role, alongside strong project management skills and experience in game development. The studio supports flexible work arrangements, including a four-day work week.

Benefits

Four-day work week

Hybrid work arrangements

Professional growth opportunities

Qualifications

• Minimum of 8 years of experience as a producer/project manager.
• Proven track record of successful game releases.
• Strong understanding of the game development cycle.
• Experience leading medium to large development teams.
• Ability to create adaptable project schedules.

Responsibilities

• Establish and maintain the product schedule & roadmap.
• Manage project scope, quality, and risks.
• Partner with technical and creative teams.
• Mentor and support producers and team members.
• Champion effective production processes.

Skills

Project management

Cross-platform game development

Effective communication

Mentorship

Risk management

Agile methodologies

Education

University degree or equivalent professional experience

Tools

AzureDevOps

JIRA

Hansoft

Job description

Blackbird Interactive is a creative-fueled, future-driven, independent game studio where the best talent in the industry can find long-term careers to help grow their abilities while working on a wide range of projects, which encompass world-class IPs as well as our own creations across multiple genres.

In 2022, we announced that our studio is implementing a four-day work week as well as supporting in-studio, remote within Canada, and hybrid work arrangements as permanent options to our employees.

Do you love it when a plan comes together? Are you able to look at a problem and identify the steps that are necessary to understand and resolve that problem? Are you an expert at cross-platform game development through the entire production cycle? Do you love rallying and motivating a team towards shared goals to build a great game?

Blackbird Interactive is seeking a Lead Producer to lead the successful delivery of a large IP across multiple platforms. You will work with talented internal and external teams, help identify their needs, and move them through all project phases, including post-launch.

Responsibilities

• Establish and maintain the product schedule & roadmap.
• Manage overall project scope and quality, proactively assess and mitigate risk.
• Manage resource requirements, establish dependencies, and balance priorities.
• Define, drive and own milestones and other project deliverables.
• Partner with technical and creative leadership teams to ensure project vision, deliverables, and goals are met.
• Evaluate development processes for success and iterate when the team and product need to evolve.
• Oversee cross-discipline feature teams and maintain scope and capacity on a daily basis.
• Partner with project creative leadership to establish feature goals and deliver features on time and on budget.
• Establish and manage relationships and processes with key stakeholders, publisher and external partners.
• Establish and maintain regular communication channels with feature teams and coordinate dependencies with stakeholders.
• Mentor, coach, and support producers and other team members.
• Champion effective production processes, identify opportunities to improve processes that will increase quality and efficiency, and help shape the evolution of production practices across the team.

Requirements

• Minimum of 8 years of experience in a producer/project manager capacity across full-cycle projects.
• Proven track record of successful releases.
• Strong understanding of the game development cycle from pre-production to release and beyond.
• Experience leading medium to large size development teams.
• Demonstrable ability to develop and manage clear, adaptable project schedules and delivery plans, applying appropriate project management methodologies, tools, and frameworks to drive effective execution across complex projects.
• Is a steady and practiced hand at steering a game’s production through the different stages of development.
• Adept at preparing mitigation and contingency plans before problems occur within a team or project.
• Experience working directly with external and publisher stakeholders.
• Passion and enthusiasm for games and game development.
• Effective communication skills across all levels and disciplines.
• Ability to work in a fast-paced, dynamic, and collaborative team environment.

Pluses

• University degree or equivalent professional experience.
• Experience in cross-platform development environments.
• At least 2 shipped AAA game projects.
• Experience with AzureDevOps, Hansoft, JIRA, or other project management software tools.
• Lean/Agile certifications.