Lead Producer

31stunion; San Mateo (CA); On-site; USD 140,000 - 190,000; Full time

Job summary

31stunion is seeking a Lead Producer to drive production strategy across content groups (concept, modelling, FX, etc.) and help define external development approaches. You’ll manage multiple areas, hire and develop top talent, and occasionally execute at a granular level to meet growing game needs.

You will mentor staff, own schedules, and collaborate with studio leadership to align with the project’s strategic vision and production standards.

Qualifications

• Strong production leadership experience across multiple areas.
• Ability to define strategy and drive schedules and roadmaps.
• Proven track record of hiring and developing production talent.

Responsibilities

• Act as production lead for multiple areas and crafts, ensuring milestones from concept to completion.
• Create and maintain schedules, roadmaps, and department updates aligned with goals.
• Identify risks and manage scope creep with proactive decision making.
• Ensure day-to-day production standards and unblock bottlenecks.
• Communicate progress clearly to stakeholders and pillar teams.
• Mentor and develop direct reports and coordinate staffing with leadership.
• Lead process improvements and contribute to long-term production strategy.

Skills

Expert planner

Diplomat

Excellent communicator

Active listener

Quality-focused

Mentor leadership

Job description

WE ARE GAME MAKERS

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.

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 able to quickly adjust to the game's growing needs and at times roll up your sleeves and execute at a more granular level.

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: