Development Director 1

At Kabam, we’re constantly raising the bar of excellence in free-to-play gaming. We hire for passion and diversity so that we can triumph in our collective skill. Our teams are made up of a fusion of personalities and interests bound together by a collaborative nature, fun-loving culture, and a drive to do what it takes to make great games. And this is where you come in…

A Development Director 1 keeps the project schedule and helps move the development team from one project phase to the next while ensuring collaboration and communication both on the immediate team and with other partner teams within the studio. A Development Director manages a variety of disciplines including artists, designers, software engineers, QA and other production staff. DD's are the keepers of the project schedule and play a vital role in successfully moving the development team from one project phase to the next while ensuring a strong focus on quality, collaboration and communication. Reporting to the Development Director 2, you will partner with producers to ensure that they are managing the project on time, to quality, and within budget.

This role is a full-time, on-site position based 5 days a week at our Downtown Vancouver studio.

In this role, you can expect to:

Key Accountabilities
 
Leadership:
Partners with Senior Production team members, continuing to drive planning and execution to support a live game.
Plays a lead role in managing and cultivating the project teams; suggesting and leading process improvement initiatives studio-wide.
Advocates for employee career development by providing guidance and mentorship to the team, and making sure they have everything they need to shine in their job.
Suggests and leading process improvement initiatives studio-wide.

Project Management:
Collaborates with key project stakeholders to establish/plan schedules and resource requirements based on project goals.
Identifies dependencies and priorities between tasks in partnership with the project teams.
Monitors project progress within assigned budgets and managing any changes that impact the overall project schedule, budget and resources along with proper communication.

Development:
Ensures the team is trained on necessary skills, processes, and best practices.
Supports an environment where staff understand how their daily work contributes to the company’s goals.
Solves problems, balancing priorities, and finding creative solutions to achieve results.

Execution:
Assigns task goals from defined project goals; achieve project deliverables through managing a team at a project-level.
Tracks and manages scope in alignment with capacity, identifying and mitigating risks for assigned scope as needed.
Partners with producers to manage and balance scope, ensuring timeline and quality targets are met.

To be successful in this role, your background includes:

• Bachelor’s degree in related field or certification in project management, with a focus on Agile methodologies.
• 7+ years of project management experience in entertainment and/or software development industry.
• 3+ years in a leadership role with strong people management skills.
• Experience setting up and running project management tools such as JIRA, and also comfortable using resource. management tools to track, model and analyze resource allocation.
• Deep understanding of games as a service business model.
• High degree of initiative and the ability to proactively identify opportunities to improve.
• Knowledge of JIRA and other PM tools.
• Effective communication skills with the proven ability to influence outcomes across all levels of organization.
• Excellent change management skills, i.e., comfortable with ambiguity and constant change, yet able to set priorities and execute commitments.

Our success is due to the hard work of our people. We share our success with our people through flexible benefits and reward programs, sweet swag, snacks, and more. Here’s a look at some of the support we provide our people:

Extended Health Coverage: effective day one, no waiting period! Our benefits cover health, dental, life, disability, and extended paramedical services such as vision care, mental health practitioners, massage, physiotherapy, acupuncture, and much more.
DEIB Benefits: DEIB is important to us and to our people - that’s why our benefits include gender-affirming care, fertility care, and other hormonal treatments and drugs.
Flexible Spending Accounts: our benefits are built on a flex credit model, so you’re able to choose the coverage levels that are right for you, and allocate the rest to a group RRSP/TFSA, Health Spending account, and/or Personal Spending Account.
RRSP Matching: everyone retires eventually, and we help our people save for their futures with a contribution matching program once you reach 90 days with us.
Commuter Benefit: we believe in the power of in-person collaboration, and want to support you in making it work for you! We provide a flexible, monthly cash allowance to help cover the costs of transit, parking, or even personal logistics like childcare and pet care.
PTO and Parental Leave: we offer paid parental leave, flexible paid time off, paid time off for volunteering, sick leave, and holiday closures.
Employee and Family Assistance Program: this program provides crisis management support, immediate mental health care, and generalized support for emotional, mental, and financial well-being.
Telus Virtual Health: we provide increased access to remote healthcare providers for prescription refills or referrals from the comfort of your home.
Learning and growth: We encourage people to grow both personally and professionally, and support this through regular lunch & learns and an education stipend.
Pay transparency: We share with employees the pay range their role falls within and clear career maps to determine how they can grow within their role or level-up to a promotion.
Cool spaces: Our offices are in Vancouver, Montreal, Los Angeles, and San Francisco. Whether it’s summers on the rooftop patio in Downtown Vancouver, or watching the fireworks in Montreal’s South Shore - we want our people to feel like their time spent in office is worthwhile!
Giving back: Kabammers have a dedicated paid day off every year to volunteer to a cause close to their hearts. Some teams even band together for group volunteer days off-site!