Lead Producer - Tactical Shooter (Unreal 5)

Blackbird Interactive is a creative-fueled, future-driven, independent game studio where the best talent in the industry can find long-term careers to help grow their abilities while working on a wide range of projects, which encompass world-class IPs as well as our own creations across multiple genres.

Our studio operates as a remote-first workplace, offering flexible work arrangements.

At this time, we are only able to hire candidates who are legally eligible to work in Canada and reside within Canada.

Do you love it when a plan comes together? Are you able to look at a problem and identify the steps that are necessary to understand and resolve that problem? Are you an expert at cross-platform game development through the entire production cycle? Do you love rallying and motivating a team towards shared goals to build a great game?

Blackbird Interactive is seeking a Lead Producer to lead the successful delivery of a third person tactical shooter being developed in Unreal Engine 5 for PC. You will work with talented internal and external teams, help identify their needs, and move them through all project phases. This role is remote-friendly in Canada with Pacific-time overlap required.

Responsibilities:
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Establish and maintain the product schedule & roadmap

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Manage overall project scope and quality, proactively assess and mitigate risk

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Manage resource requirements, establish dependencies, and balance priorities

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Define, drive and own milestones and other project deliverables

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Partner with a technical and creative leadership team to ensure project vision, deliverables, and goals are met and delivered on time and in budget

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Evaluate development processes for success and iterate when the team and product need to evolve

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Oversee cross-discipline feature teams and maintain scope and capacity on a daily basis

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Work closely and foster strong and transparent relationships with external partners

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Establish and manage relationships and processes with key stakeholders, publisher and external partners

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Establish and maintain regular communication channels with feature teams and coordinate dependencies with stakeholders

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Mentor, coach and support producers and other team members

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Champion effective production processes, identify opportunities to improve processes that will increase quality and efficiency, and help shape the evolution of production practices across the team.

Requirements:
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Minimum of 8 years of experience in a producer/project manager capacity across full-cycle projects.

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Proven track record of successful releases

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Strong understanding of the game development cycle from pre-production to release and beyond

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Experience leading medium to large size development teams

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Demonstrable ability to develop and manage clear, adaptable project schedules and delivery plans, applying appropriate project management methodologies, tools, and frameworks to drive effective execution across complex projects

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Is a steady and practiced hand at steering a game’s production through the different stages of development

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Adept at preparing mitigation and contingency plans before problems occur within a team or project

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Experience working directly with external and publisher stakeholders

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Passion and enthusiasm for games and game development.

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Effective communication skills across all levels and disciplines

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Ability to work in a fast-paced, dynamic, and collaborative team environment.

Pluses:
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University degree or equivalent professional experience

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Experience in cross-platform development environments

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Experience in concept & prototype phases

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Experience developing third person tactical shooters

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At least 2 shipped AAA game projects

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Experience with AzureDevOps, Hansoft, JIRA, or other project management software tools

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Lean/Agile certifications.