Director of Core Development

In this role, you can expect to:

Key Accountabilities:
• Accountable and Responsible for roadmap development execution; Production is Responsible for delivery planning and tracking.
• Accountable and Responsible for live handover readiness; Live Service is Responsible for sign-off.
• Responsible for delivery against KPIs on roadmap features, building to design and to quality, under Game Director accountability for design and Product accountability for outcome.
• Responsible for roadmap delivery status and risk in senior forums, under Production accountability.
 
Roadmap Feature Development:
• Own the development of roadmap features, new systems, quality-of-life work and tentpole content from greenlight through to live handover.
• Build the development rhythm that moves long-term work forward: milestones, reviews, playable builds and quality gates.
• Hold the line on long-term work against the constant pull of live priorities, surfacing to the EP when roadmap capacity is being eroded.
• Own the handover standard: nothing transfers to the live game without operational documentation, tuning levers and live-readiness sign-off from Live Service.
 
Platform and Systems Investment:
• Own platform investment, architecture improvement and foundational systems work in partnership with the Tech Director, who runs the engineering organisation.
• Hold functional priority for the Game Development Engineering stream, directing what it builds within the quarterly allocation.
• Balance feature development against foundational investment so the roadmap does not ship on rotting infrastructure.
 
Discipline Leadership:
• Lead the Core Development teams and grow the discipline's craft, development methodology and quality standards.
• Build and protect the operating rhythms (milestone reviews, playtests, greenlight gates) that keep long-term work honest and visible.
 
People Leadership:
• Line-manage the Development Leads and senior development staff, owning their objectives, performance, growth and career development.
• Run the people rhythms across the group: regular 1:1s, performance reviews and calibration.
• Own workforce planning for Core Development: team structure, hiring plans and succession for key roles.
• Recruit, retain and mentor senior development talent, holding a healthy culture and a sustainable pace across long-horizon work.
 
Cross-Functional Partnership:
• Partner with the Game Director to turn design solutions into built, tested, shippable features, holding development quality and milestone honesty while Game Direction holds the creative bar.
• Partner with the Director of Product on roadmap shape and sequencing, delivering each initiative as scoped and surfacing early when the build evidence says the bet is not working.
• Mirror the Director of Live Service, owning what is coming next while they own the game as it runs, meeting at the handover and feeding live learnings back into the build.
• Work with the Director of Production on delivery planning, capacity, sequencing, and QA and release readiness for what Core Development builds, owning the development itself within that frame.
• Integrate Art, UX and Tech craft throughout development rather than at the end, building to each craft lead's bar.

To be successful in this role, your background includes:

• Bachelor's degree or higher, with a specialization in production, delivery, engineering management or a related discipline.
• Strong grasp of the technologies behind game development, with their capabilities and limits.
• 10+ years in games or entertainment development and production, with 5+ years leading, in a mid or large studio.
• 7+ years in a product development role; shipped at least one title through the full cycle, including live production.
• Direct experience across concept, pre-production, production and live production, and of managing QA, release and external partners on a live-service title.
• Transformative leadership style that grows and mentors teams; strong written and oral communication with solid presentation skills.

Our success is due to the hard work of our people. We share our success with our people through flexible benefits and reward programs, sweet swag, snacks, and more. Here’s a look at some of the support we provide our people:

Extended Health Coverage: effective day one, no waiting period! Our benefits cover health, dental, life, disability, and extended paramedical services such as vision care, mental health practitioners, massage, physiotherapy, acupuncture, and much more.
DEIB Benefits: DEIB is important to us and to our people - that’s why our benefits include gender-affirming care, fertility care, and other hormonal treatments and drugs.
Flexible Spending Accounts: our benefits are built on a flex credit model, so you’re able to choose the coverage levels that are right for you, and allocate the rest to a group RRSP/TFSA, Health Spending account, and/or Personal Spending Account.
RRSP Matching: everyone retires eventually, and we help our people save for their futures with a contribution matching program once you reach 90 days with us.
Commuter Benefit: we believe in the power of in-person collaboration, and want to support you in making it work for you! We provide a flexible, monthly cash allowance to help cover the costs of transit, parking, or even personal logistics like childcare and pet care.
PTO and Parental Leave: we offer paid parental leave, flexible paid time off, paid time off for volunteering, sick leave, and holiday closures.
Employee and Family Assistance Program: this program provides crisis management support, immediate mental health care, and generalized support for emotional, mental, and financial well-being.
Telus Virtual Health: we provide increased access to remote healthcare providers for prescription refills or referrals from the comfort of your home.
Learning and growth: We encourage people to grow both personally and professionally, and support this through regular lunch & learns and an education stipend.
Pay transparency: We share with employees the pay range their role falls within and clear career maps to determine how they can grow within their role or level-up to a promotion.
Cool spaces: Our offices are in Vancouver, Montreal, Los Angeles, and San Francisco. Whether it’s summers on the rooftop patio in Downtown Vancouver, or watching the fireworks in Montreal’s South Shore - we want our people to feel like their time spent in office is worthwhile!
Giving back: Kabammers have a dedicated paid day off every year to volunteer to a cause close to their hearts. Some teams even band together for group volunteer days off-site!