Director, External Development

PRODUCTIONWhat We Do

Whether it’s driving a vision from start to finish or collaborating with teams to inspire and deliver projects of Epic quality, Epic’s production teams take pride in consistently delivering world-class products and experiences.

What You'll Do

Epic Games is searching for a Director to lead our external development efforts across our first-party games. In this role, you’ll manage a team focused on building co-dev capacity to ensure that high-quality content, art, and development work is being delivered by multiple external vendors across multiple projects. We will look to this leader to ensure the successful delivery of multiple high-quality projects, on time and within budget, across multiple platforms. The ideal candidate has partnered with several external vendors to ship multiple AAA titles.

In this role, you will

• Partner with Fortnite leadership to understand, determine, and deliver on external development needs across all Epic first-party games. Actively source for new co-dev partners to build additional capacity as needed across content creation and art
• Provide strategic and tactical oversight for external development, as well as define, track, and report on production metrics and KPIs. Monitor overall development risks and roadblocks for major initiatives across the first-party development team
• Lead budget forecasting, cost analysis, and budget management for all development and co-development vendor spend.This role will be responsible for identifying opportunities to streamline costs and increase efficiency
• Manage communications, both internal and external, by providing performance feedback to external vendors, while helping maintain strong relationships between external teams and internal stakeholders
• Identify opportunities and drive process adoption to improve workflows as it relates to external development
• Collaborate with Epic’s internal Finance, Legal, and Procurement teams to understand industry standard rates for services and negotiate contract terms with external vendors
• Ensure smooth development and delivery processes across multiple external and partner teams from prototype and through launch. Draw on your vast experience managing AAA games and your deep understanding of development best practices to provide vision for successful co-dev process at Epic

What we're looking for

• 10+ years experience with external development/outsourcing and external content and development management required, preferably for AAA games
• Exceptional knowledge/experience of driving process improvement and change management
• Demonstrated understanding of game development process and how multiple external developers can be integrated into a fast-paced and quality-focused project
• Experience in a software development organization and familiar with SDLC best practices
• Ability to build strong partnerships at every level; an excellent understanding of leading both directly and through influence. The kind of person that people want to work for and work with
• Deep knowledge of industry-standard development pipelines
• Outstanding leadership, project management, communication and facilitation skills and adept at operating within ambiguous situations and high pressure scenarios

This role is open to multiple locations across the US (including CA & NYC).

Pay Transparency Information

The expected annual base pay range(s) for this position are detailed below. Each base pay range is relevant only for individuals who are residents of or will be expected to work within the specified locale. Compensation varies based on a variety of factors, which include (but aren’t limited to) things such as skills and competencies, qualifications, knowledge, and experience. In addition to base pay, most employees are eligible to participate in Epic’s generous benefit plans and discretionary incentive programs (subject to the terms of those plans or programs).