This job listing expired on Jul 7, 2020
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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

We are currently on the search for our next Studio Production Director for our well established and successful Sheffield studio. This role is to backfill the previous Studio Production Director, who has now moved on to be our Sheffield Studio Director, the person you would report into.Working from our largest studio, you would be responsible for the execution of all contracts which are lead from the Sheffield Studio, and includes the management of all Sheffield based Production teams across a wide range of really exciting projects across multiple genres.

Within your new role you will:

  • Be Discipline leader for Production Roles across all projects within the Sheffield Studio
  • Own and manages our bespoke resource management and financial forecasting tool, Banzuke
  • Work with the Studio Director, Development Directors and other Discipline Directors to optimise staff utilization across all projects
  • Ensure on-time delivery of monthly staff allocation data to Finance
  • Be responsible for ensuring clear accurate and complete planning of all Sheffield titles
  • Provide qualitative feedback of products in development, along with Studio Leadership team
  • Support the Sumo Project Management Office
  • Create clear goals for each project production team which are both inspiring and measurable and ensure these are carried through to completion.
  • Work with the Studio Director to ensure Sheffield Studio achieves budget targets for Income, Gross Profit and Staff Utilisation across all projects.
  • Provide support for Development Directors
  • Work with other Studio Discipline Directors to ensure each team has the correct balance of staff. Act as arbiter in the event of contention for production staff between projects.

To be successful you will have:

  • Prior Experience of leading production function on complex multi-platform projects
  • Executed multiple full-project lifecycles in the games industry
  • Managed production team on projects with development budgets in excess of $20m
  • Delivered at least one game with MC of 75% or greater, in a leadership position.

You will also have the ability to:

  • Create and set clear goals for the production leadership team, which are measurable and the tenacity to follow these through to completion.
  • Direct a team of producers to create and maintain an effective production planning and tracking system to suit any particular project, which is relevant to any particular phase.
  • Maintain a positive outlook in adverse circumstances, keep team motivation high and makes time to explain their own and the company’s decisions.
  • Establish Projects KPI’s / Dashboard and be able to use this to communicate progress both internally and to clients.
  • Sell in difficult decisions to team members and clients, with positive outcomes, being a natural influencer.
  • Review a video game project in development and form a reasonable judgement of the games’ quality.
  • Delegate important tasks to provide bandwidth to lead large teams.

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