Lead Producer

31st Union; San Mateo (CA); On-site; USD 169,000 - 250,000; Full time

Job summary

31st Union in California invites an experienced Lead Producer to guide our content teams (concept, modelling, FX, etc.). You will shape strategy, manage multiple areas, and drive hiring and development of top production talent to meet ambitious game goals.

You will partner with studio and discipline leaders to set objectives, mitigate risk, and maintain production health, culture, and strong processes across the organisation. This role blends long-term planning with hands-on execution.

Responsibilities

• Production Management & Delivery: lead for multiple areas, ensuring quality, timeliness from concept to completion.
• Schedule & Goal Creation: develop roadmaps and department updates aligned with goals.
• Risk & Scope Mitigation: identify issues, decide quickly, mitigate feature creep.
• Feature Ownership & Production Oversight: ensure producers own responsibilities and uphold production standards.
• Issue Resolution: identify and resolve impediments to prevent delays.
• Team Communication: broadcast updates clearly to stakeholders at the right times.
• People & Staff Management: mentor direct reports and plan career growth with leadership.
• Process Optimization & Production Leadership: improve operations and pipeline efficiency.

Tools

JIRA

Job description

Who We Are

We are a diverse team of developers driven by a passion for our art, united by our core values and inspired by a culture of inclusivity to build amazing games that thrill players everywhere. We pursue growth and innovation in an environment of safety and trust, striving to deliver the highest quality experience for our players all the time. Our culture is built on the belief that the more varied voices in our collective will strengthen our team and our games. We are looking for our next teammate who will raise our bar and make us better.

WE ARE GAME MAKERS

We are a diverse team of developers driven by a passion for our art, united by our core values and inspired by a culture of inclusivity to build amazing games that thrill players everywhere. We pursue growth and innovation in an environment of safety and trust, striving to deliver the highest quality experience for our players all the time. Our culture is built on the belief that the more varied voices in our collective will strengthen our team and our games. We are looking for our next teammate who will raise our bar and make us better.

What We Need

We are seeking a Lead Producer to serve as a key leader for our production team to support our content groups (concept, modelling, FX, etc) and help define external development strategies. With an increased scope and breadth relative to other production partners, you will focus on project strategy, take accountability for managing multiple areas and crafts, and play a vital role in hiring and developing top production talent. You will need to be able to quickly adjust to the game’s growing needs and at times roll up your sleeves and execute at a more granular level. The ideal candidate is an expert planner and problem solver who can seamlessly move between long-term strategy and short-term execution. Working closely with the production, studio, and discipline leadership teams, you will ensure our teams are set up for success, help set clear objectives aligned with business goals, aggressively mitigate risk, and serve as a driving force for team health, culture, and process improvement.

What You’ll Do

• Production Management & Delivery: Act as the production lead for multiple areas and crafts, taking accountability for the quality, upkeep, and timeliness of milestone deliveries from concept to completion.
• Schedule & Goal Creation: Ensure the development and upkeep of schedules, roadmaps, and department updates across your purview. Set clear objectives and assist producers in creating plans that align with project and business goals while driving continued planning improvements.
• Risk & Scope Mitigation: Actively identify complex development, project, or personnel issues; make tough, timely, and sometimes controversial decisions; and proactively lead discussions around managing feature or scope creep.
• Feature Ownership & Production Oversight: While not common, there may need to be some features directly developed within the groups you support. Need to ensure producers own their day-to-day responsibilities, uphold the "Production Standard," eliminate bottlenecks, and track feature statuses daily.
• Issue Resolution: Use a best-in-class critical thinking mindset to identify, track, manage, and resolve project impediments quickly to ensure no "dangling threads" slow down progress.
• Team Communication: Mobilize your areas to organize and broadcast updates clearly to appropriate stakeholders at the right times. Ensure producers keep both their teams, and the pillar teams that their groups support, informed with the appropriate level of detail.
• People & Staff Management: Provide day-to-day management, mentorship, and leadership to direct reports. Develop actionable career growth plans, leverage stretch roles, and grow the next generation of production leadership. Partner with leadership on staffing allocation and hiring efforts.
• Process Optimization & Production Leadership: Serve as a core member of the Production Leadership Group to improve production operations, drive consistent processes, and establish pipeline improvements.
• Strategic Alignment: Partner with studio leadership on production strategy and long-term organizational vision. Ensure teams deeply understand the project's strategic vision to prevent unnecessary confusion, thrashing, or wasted effort.

Who You Are

• An Expert Planner & Doer: An opportunistic self-starter who "flies at a higher altitude," expertly discerning must-haves from nice-to-haves and shifting focus seamlessly between micro, macro, and global project levels.
• A Model Collaborator & Diplomat: A pillar of integrity, trusted ally, and an advisor to leads and directors who listens to all sides free from personal attachment, excels at navigating different personalities, and compromises when faced with competing priorities.
• An Expert Communicator: Highly articulate, thorough, professional, and direct in both written and verbal communication. Able to adapt your style across diverse groups, deliver feedback of all types, and articulate the need for change to make it reality.
• A Highly Skilled Listener: Self-aware, emotionally mature, and able to quickly get to the heart of a situation and the concerns of those involved while encouraging team-wide open communication in a controlled, safe setting.
• A Refined Eye for Quality: Possesses an expert eye for visual and functional quality, bringing a high-level perspective of big-picture goals to decision-making and issue resolution.
• A Supportive Leader & Mentor: Passionate about setting teams up for success, recognizing internal talent, and mentoring colleagues through stretch roles and conflict resolution.
• Culturally Attentive: A champion for team health, morale, and dynamic, partnering with leadership to lead team health improvement efforts from the front.
• Grounded in the Craft: Deeply understands game development processes, leads by example, and instills a success-oriented, accountability-focused culture centered on what’s best for the players and the game.
• Tooling: Minimum intermediate, ideally highly proficient, JIRA experience paired with a strong understanding of Agile processes and how to adapt to a game development reality.
• Level of Experience: A seasoned, senior production leader that not only upholds the established standards of excellence but helps develop and improve upon them.

The pay range for this position in California at the start of employment is expected to be between $169,100 and $250,280 per Year. However, base pay offered is based on market location, and may vary further depending on individualized factors for job candidates, such as job-related knowledge, skills, experience, and other objective business considerations. Subject to those same considerations, the total compensation package for this position may also include other elements, including a bonus and/or equity awards and eligibility to participate in our 401(K) plan and Employee Stock Purchase Program. Regular, full-time employees are also eligible for a range of benefits at the Company, including: medical, dental, vision, and basic life insurance coverage; 14 paid holidays per calendar year; paid vacation time per calendar year (ranging from 15 to 25 days) or eligibility to participate in the Company’s discretionary time off program; up to 10 paid sick days per calendar year; paid parental and compassionate leave; wellbeing programs for mental health and other wellness support; family planning support through Maven; commuter benefits; and reimbursements for fitness-related expenses. Ontario only: The use of Artificial Intelligence is not being used to screen candidates. The position is for an existing vacancy.