Live Ops Manager

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…

The Live Ops Manager is directly responsible for establishing, configuring, and stress-testing the operational pipelines required for global launch, ensuring operational excellence and maximizing commercial success as we ramp up. This role requires hands-on capability to utilize game data, competitive research, and player feedback to configure, execute, and optimize highly engaging features and events leading up to and immediately following launch. This role will analyze and report on engagement & monetization performance.

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
• Design, document, and validate all end-to-end Live Ops playbooks, protocols, and deployment checklists to prepare the team and systems for operational scale during global launch.
• Directly establish, execute and configure the pipeline of Live Ops event calendar and content schedules using proprietary tooling (e.g., SPARX) to ensure successful deployment readiness.
• Act as the primary escalation point for all content deployment issues, providing first-line troubleshooting and diagnostics for configuration errors within the Live Ops tools.
• Manage the Live Ops game team (e.g. leads meetings, sets goals, manage performance, ability to develop others in the team).
• Perform rapid analysis of live metrics (utilizing BI tools or direct data querying) to identify immediate service trends and proactively execute tactical adjustments to live content configurations.
• Certify the operational readiness of all new major features by coordinating cross-functional teams (e.g., QA, Engineering) and personally validating end-to-end Live Ops systems before release.
• Attend build meetings to represent Live Ops and actively track and resolve operational red flags and blockers specifically impacting content deployment pipelines and system stability.
• Attend and contribute to Leads meetings.
• Apply expert understanding of game economics to the hands-on configuration of prices, bundles, and economy levers within the Live Ops tools to maximize commercial success.
• Support conflict resolution and staff management to unblock deliverables.
• Regularly participate in 1:1s with direct reports.
 
Leadership Accountabilities
• Lead by example and be comfortable with ambiguity.
• Celebrate successes and learn from failures.
• Be a culture pillar, empower and drive the team's vision and goals in alignment with strategic direction.
• Build team accountability, cohesiveness, and supportiveness to enable departmental success.
• Cultivate an empathetic and safe environment that facilitates healthy debate and expeditious conflict resolution.
• Foster a growth mindset through training, mentorship, providing feedback, and coaching.
• Represent Kabam externally at industry associations, special interest communities, and events.

To be successful in this role, your background includes:

• Post-Secondary degree in related field.
• 5+ Years Experience working on a GaaS (Games as a Service) Product.
• 2+ Years in a Senior Live Ops Specialist Capacity.
• Demonstrated track record and experience in leading or directly supporting the operational readiness and execution for a major global launch of a free-to-play game.
• Sound product judgment, ability to formulate live ops strategy and present clear, measurable key results that will lead to achieving business goals.
• Demonstrable hands-on experience configuring, launching, and managing live events through proprietary tools or content management systems (CMS) in a fast-paced environment.
• Deep understanding of economy and monetization design, as well as of engagement drivers in live service games.
• Strong quantitative and analytical skills with an emphasis on metrics-driven decision making.
• Comfortable taking calculated risks, learning and sharing the lessons learned.
• Extensive knowledge of live operations and monetization trends within the free-to-play business model.
• Expert, hands-on proficiency with SPARX (or similar proprietary CMS/LiveOps tooling), including advanced configuration, scheduling, and troubleshooting of complex live events without relying on external engineering support.
• Demonstrated capability in direct data querying (e.g., SQL) or advanced usage of BI dashboards to rapidly diagnose live service issues, measure event performance, and inform tactical decisions.
• Familiar with top grossing F2P games and F2P LO design & system trends.
• Strong understanding of game and player experience (e.g. you are an active social player).
• Able to start thinking outside the box about new features to release in the game and the impact of that feature on the game and players.

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!