We build ground-breaking games and content for some of the world’s biggest publishers including Microsoft, Sony, Apple and Sega. Sheffield is our largest studio and headquarters, situated just north-east of the city centre, where we’ve built and contributed to some of the world’s best-loved game franchises.

It’s an exciting time to be part of Sumo, winners of the Develop: Star Awards 2019 Best Studio; big things are on the horizon and we want you to be part of our continued journey. Join us!

The role @ Sumo

As the External Development Director at Sumo Digital you will be the key program and execution owner for large scale distributed engagements. The primary function of your role is to execute the full project life-cycle for projects which are largely standalone from our internal studios.

As well as this you will act as an internal point of contact, escalation point and troubleshooter on large and multi-discipline co-developments with our internal studios.

You will need to be subject matter expert on facilitating communication best practice, remote working, cross site working and processes collaborating with heads of disciplines to make distributed development as effective and friction-less as possible.

Ultimately you will be responsible for the successful delivery of contracts to exacting creative and commercial standards, building long term relationships with effective vendors to allow us to be able to deploy friction-less and flexible capacity and services to maximise opportunities for Sumo Digital Limited.

In your new role your responsibilities will include:

Working with all stakeholders to execute an RFP analysis on opportunities which we consider standalone from other Sumo Studios.
Facilitate, drive and validate detailed execution plans between lead vendors and co-development partners. Act as the project management POC for large multi-discipline engagements.
Act as lead interface for Sumo’s clients in the execution of standalone Distributed Development Projects.
Monitor and validate project output and tracking against agreed plans, milestones and critical deliveries. Manage, mitigate and escalate variances and work them to satisfactory resolutions.
Alongside the Distributed Development team act as the judicial balance between internal teams, vendors and external clients with a view to the commercial needs of Sumo Digital Limited.
Work with members of the Distributed Development Department and Sumo internal Clients to agree escalation pathways, communication strategies and responsibility assignments for engagements.
Management of project change control process – ensuring both requested project changes are tracked from request through to contract price and scope amendment, and recording of delay and disruption on the project, being able to utilize this data to defend any Sumo delays and additional compensation if necessary.

To be successful you will:

Have executed multiple full project life-cycles in the games industry
Have a proven background in delivering projects with a large outsourcing, co-development and/or remote working component.
Be able to create and set clear goals for the external project teams, which are measurable and to assure reliable delivery and operational excellence.
Show a good technical awareness of systems, IT infrastructure and software required to facilitate distributed development and the ability to collaborate with Sumo IT to deploy a required suite of tools and functionality to set up a distributed engagement for success.
Demonstrate you can establish a Projects KPI’s / Dashboard and be able to use this to communicate progress both internally and to clients.
Be able to successfully manage a project P&L, able to set up a P&L and track it’s progress. Ensures financial control of project expenditure, able to determine value from contracts and exhibit good financial judgement.
Operation of project change control process – ensuring both requested project changes are tracked from request through to contract price and scope amendment, and recording of delay and disruption on the project, being able to utilize this data to defend any Sumo delays and additional compensation if necessary.

What We Offer:

We offer a super benefits package including generous holidays and flexible working hours. Further perks include our legendary annual Sumo Big Day Out, plus epic Christmas parties, money on your birthday, on site free gym and free fruit for everyone! Our new, regular studio Game Jams are a highlight - staff spend a full day developing and pitching their own game ideas for possible development by Sumo.

Our environment is relaxed, friendly and built upon the basis of every team member having the opportunity to shine and have a realisable input into the games we create. We are a very happy ship with lots of incredibly nice people that partake in shared interest groups, lunchtime clubs, charity fundraising events and lots of socialising.

We are proud to be located in Sheffield, just off J34 of the M1 offering easy road and rail access from Leeds, Manchester and the Midlands. Sheffield itself enjoys wealth of facilities including world class sporting facilities, stunning theatres and galleries, the National Video Game Museum, shopping, restaurants and incredible parks and green spaces - all on the doorstep of the beautiful Peak District National Park. We love it here