Senior Development Director

ABOUT SPLASH DAMAGE

We believe that games play better with friends. For more than 20 years, we’ve been creating team-based multiplayer experiences that have entertained tens of millions of players all over the world and forged countless new friendships along the way.

Our studio culture is rooted in our open, friendly, and collaborative environment. Our games are made by people from all over the world, from our entry-level Fresh Talent hires to industry veterans, and we believe that fostering that diverse culture is the best way to build both our games and our studio. We have won numerous awards, including a ‘World-Class’ accreditation by Best Companies and being named one of the UK’s 100 Best Large Companies to work for.

Our offices are based in Bromley, UK, and our teams have access to progressive working patterns that work for them.

Benefits:

We offer a comprehensive benefits package for you and your family, including:

• On-site and Hybrid working patterns help us spend the right amount of time together
• Substantial performance-related pay system on top of your basic compensation, along with enhanced pension contributions and our life assurance scheme
• Bespoke VISA and relocation packages for you and your family, with support from our team throughout the whole process
• 25 days of holiday and 8 Bank Holidays a year, plus our annual studio closure between Christmas and New Year’s
• Private Medical and Dental Cover for you and your family, along with a 24/7 digital GP service
• Extensive Mental Health support, with Line Manager Mental Health training, a group of Mental Health First-Aiders, and on-site or remote counselling
• Our bespoke Learning and Development course framework to help you grow as an employee, manager, and leader
• Industry-leading fully paid 30 weeks maternity leave & 10 weeks paternity leave

THE ROLE

About Development Management at Splash Damage

Development Management here at Splash Damage is one half of our Production team, the people who bear the responsibility for building and delivering game experiences that our fans and consumer demand. The Development managers are the champions of agile development processes and practice, they drive delivery and accountability within their game team, pushing for continual improvement and ensuring milestone, gates and all other deliverable expectations are met.

Development Managers work hand-in-hand with Producers, analysing and breaking down the product needs and wants and helping both the creative and product owners better define, prioritise and challenge the content, features and market expectations that go into each project. All of the quantitative and operational elements of a project live with our development management team – delivery dates and milestone planning; task breakdown, allocation and tracking; staffing requirements and feature team composition; budget handling, outsourcing and co-development balancing. If it belongs in an analytical form or an excel sheet, then it lives within the domain of Development Management.

What you're responsible for

A Senior Development Director stands as one of three equals at the top of our development team, balanced out by the Senior Production Director and the Creative Director. Where the Creative Director hold the vision for the game – the player-facing elements, the player drives and goals, the feel and the overall experience – the Production Director works on what the product needs to deliver to meet the needs of the consumer, the market and the genre. While these other two stakeholders will be driving the “what” and “why” of the product, much of the “when” is owned by the Development Management side. The Senior Development Director drives the game's overall development planning, owns the budget and is focused on monitoring and improving team performance and health. They are entrusted with bringing together the people, materials and tools, empowering teams through mentoring and performance management and are not afraid to modify agile production processes to align with an efficient team performance.

As a Senior Development Director you will have a proven track record of owning and delivering games to market, shipping titles that have generated both critical acclaim and financial success. You will have demonstrated that you can own and carry a project plan to launch and continually maintain the “on time, to quality and within budget” development trifecta. You will have demonstrated leadership across large teams, have effectively utilised communication skills, techniques and tools that provide clarity and direction to developers that may well be split across remote, hybrid or office working schedules. You will be accustomed to using data-driven analysis to make informed decisions around your goals, product and delivery planning. You, allied with the Production Director and Creative Director, will continually be pushing to balance creative ambition with the need to execute on time. You will structure and deploy your team of Development Directors, Development Managers and Associates across the development team such that you will always be relied upon to deliver the single source of truth when questions of project progress and tracking are raised. All of this will need to be accomplished within a studio that prides itself on maintaining an open and transparent development culture, where our staff thrive on making games that players love.

What we'd like to see

• A gamer: you love games, you play games, you take play seriously – it’s what drove you to the industry and why you love coming to work every single day
• A strategist: your careful planning and dream to produce results makes you an effective leader who can balance and prioritize short-term solutions with the long-term vision and goals; when making key decisions, you leave no stone unturned.
• A tactical delegator: you know how to get things done by using your tailored and proven management skills and clinical handling of agile development to allow your team to execute on the goals and craft the best product possible.
• Aspirational leader: you help others empower themselves by fostering an environment of shared ownership, accountability, constructive criticism, recognition, appreciation, and collaboration; you communicate daily with the team to update them on issues, achievements, priorities and goals.
• An information sponge: you are able to collect and articulate it with the teams and clients on a regular basis, tailoring your style and the content suitable to the audience at hand.
• A communications specialist: you know that good leadership is based on clear and aligned communication and trust. You are an ambitious leader that constantly maintains a high standard of openness and trust with every team member and expect the same high level of patience from your team as you do yourself.
• A meticulous planner: you've got the entire project mapped out with a clear view of the likely obstacles that are in your path and always have a crafted plan to steer clear of them through agile production and planning and advise other project leaders from falling over the same pitfalls.

Splash Damage is an equal opportunity employer. We believe our teams create better work when they have a range of perspectives to draw from, and we are committed to creating an inclusive working environment that celebrates diversity.