Your Platform

Located in the San Francisco Bay Area and Melbourne, Australia – we’re the videogame development team behind Call of Duty®: Modern Warfare 3, Call of Duty®: Advanced Warfare and Call of Duty®: WWII. Since our founding in 2009, our greatest passion has been making AAA games. The strength of our team makes us not only excellent at what we do, but also how we do it. We firmly believe in supporting our talented employees to be the best they can be. Here at Sledgehammer Games, everyone is a game maker.

As we head into decade II of development, we’re focused on constantly evolving, innovating and taking risks – which are some of the most rewarding aspects of game development. With world-class audio, design, engineering and art teams, we’ve been able to achieve some of the highest-quality game execution of any studio in the industry. We love what we do and work hard to make sure that each new game we make is even better than the last. Creativity is key, and we’re looking for talented game developers for our exciting next project.

Sledgehammer Games is wholly owned by Activision.

Your Mission

As the Outsource Asset Artist, you will be responsible for the complete lifecycle of interaction between Sledgehammer Games and our many art outsourcing partners. This includes working with internal Activision teams to successfully coordinate batches of content to be outsourced (typically composed of multiple briefs), interaction with management for approval of costs/budget as necessary, and interactions with multiple teams of third-party groups to successfully deliver all requested content on time, to required quality levels, and within budget. You will be the “gatekeeper” for our external vendor work and will apply your artistic eye to ensure that our vendors’ deliveries are of the highest quality possible. You will collaborate with Art disciplines to develop guidelines and packets for our vendors to follow, and you will work closely with Production to ensure that everything is delivered in an appropriate timeline. You will be the driving force behind improvements to these workflows and the first line of contact with the daily vendor relationship.

Priorities can often change in a fast-paced environment like ours, so this role includes, but is not limited to, the following responsibilities:

Work hand-in-hand with colleagues to empower the dedicated game production teams to achieve their goals for content delivery
Conduct regular reviews and send feedback on the art and technical quality of vendor submissions.
Communicate negative (“non-delivery”) information/risks to the production teams in a proactive and constructive manner
Devise and implement any potential solutions to mitigate the risks that might arise.
Collaborate closely with the Art disciplines, design, tech art and our vendors.
Partner with the discipline art lead ensuring briefs for our vendors are created and delivered.
Train vendors on our best practices and unblock their workflow issues.
Update our tracking software with estimates of assets and delivery dates based on information from our vendors. Keep our dashboards and pages in good standing to our projects schedule.
Partner with the Art Producer to ensure the vendors are hitting their performance targets by conducting necessary reviews on deliveries. Report any issues that need immediate attention.
Transfer final outsourced assets into our engine when applicable.
Maintain a clean local directory and confluence pages with finished and in progress work.
Identify risks associated with meeting project milestones.
Organize and prepare asset packets for the external team.

Player Profile

Minimum Requirements:

Experience of writing asset briefs and reviewing outsourced assets.
Experience working with international partners in an outsourcing capacity.
Strong communication skills.
Excellent organizational skills and attention to detail.
Experience driving relationships with internal and external stakeholders while successfully delivering content within budget and time.
A keen interest in playing recent AAA games outside of work, with the ability to discuss favorite titles, and express informed opinions about game quality.
Thorough knowledge of the procurement process, with an understanding of various contract types and when each should be leveraged based on the risk profile and delivery deadlines of the project
Ability to work with the project teams on performing ‘Make or buy’ analysis
3+ years of experience in game art asset creation in different software packages including Maya, Zbrush, Substance and Photoshop
Have shipped AAA PC, console or mobile titles as an Outsource Manager
Strong character and environment modeling experience
Experience with creating project schedules and velocity/burndown reports
Experience managing a small internal team of direct reports

Extra Points:

Experience with negotiating and documenting formal changes to contracts during execution
Experience with project budget tracking

Our World

Activision Blizzard, Inc. (NASDAQ: ATVI), is one of the world's largest and most successful interactive entertainment companies and is at the intersection of media, technology and entertainment. We are home to some of the most beloved entertainment franchises including Call of Duty®, World of Warcraft®, Overwatch®, Diablo®, Candy Crush™ and Bubble Witch™. Our combined entertainment network delights hundreds of millions of monthly active users in 196 countries, making us the largest gaming network on the planet!

Our ability to build immersive and innovate worlds is only enhanced by diverse teams working in an inclusive environment. We aspire to have a culture where everyone can thrive in order to connect and engage the world through epic entertainment. We provide a suite of benefits that promote physical, emotional and financial well-being for ‘Every World’ - we’ve got our employees covered!

The videogame industry and therefore our business is fast-paced and will continue to evolve. As such, the duties and responsibilities of this role may be changed as directed by the Company at any time to promote and support our business and relationships with industry partners.

Sledgehammer Games is an Equal Opportunity Employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, national origin, protected veteran status, or any other basis protected by applicable law and will not be discriminated against on the basis of disability.