Job Description

At NaturalMotion, we make games that wow people. We innovate to create experiences that previously were impossible and that would not exist without us. We take pride in making titles that reach a large audience and in creating communities that last. For the past six years, NaturalMotion Studios have been named as one of the Best Places to Work in the UK games industry by gamesindustry.biz.

Our Racing Studio - responsible for the CSR Racing franchise and the #1 Racing Game on Mobile CSR2 - is one of the most ambitious, successful, and creatively inclusive studios in the UK. Based across three locations – London, Birmingham and Bangalore - the team loves welcoming diverse, humble, straightforward and ambitious talent, aspiring for award-winning excellence. People who want to find a place where they will be supported and encouraged to do the best work of their career.

Job Purpose 

We are currently looking for a Lead Technical Producer to lead the Server, Infrastructure, Tools and Technology teams on a new project. This is a senior production role that will report directly to the Executive Producer. You will partner with the Engineering Leads to lead multiple engineering-focused pods focused on delivering, maintaining, and continuously improving the shared technology that underpins the new title.

As a Lead Producer at NaturalMotion, you will be the driving force within teams. You will own the planning and path to achieving the highest quality with a new, premiere mobile Racing game. You will empower teams to deliver an amazing game at high quality, on budget and on time. You will champion the improvement of the development processes through team retrospectives and feedback.

You will work with risk assessment and risk mitigation planning. As part of your job you will proactively resolve any dependencies and communicate the production status, plans, risk mitigation, and development metrics back to the team and to the studio leadership. You are able to react and make decisions quickly and independently.

Key Roles & Responsibilities

• Plan and Execute: Working with feature teams, leadership, and partner teams, you will capture and track the work to be done, work with stakeholders, engineering leaders and the team to set backlog priorities, ensure ownership, build long and short term plans, and communicate to all interested parties
• Manage Delivery: Ensure high quality, timely delivery of scope to the teams being supported
• Triage and prioritize bug fixes maintaining a healthy, manageable, controlled bug backlog
• Collaborate Across Departments: Collaborate closely with Game Teams, LiveOps, and craft leaders to understand their requirements, manage expectations, and ensure alignment
• Establish, Drive and Maintain status reports on technical performance
• Drive processes to improve efficiency and communication
• Communicate and Lead: Own written, verbal and visual communication between disciplines, teams and individuals. Present transparent progress status and risk plan reporting, as well as quantitative production milestone metrics. Keep everyone in sync with plans, and changes as they happen. Provide vision and direction to individuals and teams, provide clear ownership of problem-solving and feature development

 Required Skills & Experience 

• You will have demonstrable ability in defining, overseeing and executing best-practice Live Operations and Games as a Service approaches, delivering vibrant, performant content week after week
• Knowledge about mobile games and the key design and monetization trends and opportunities that will shape live operations in the future
• You are able to represent the players’ needs in backlog planning and refinement meetings to ensure their expectations are consistently being exceeded
• Comfortable communicating and presenting to big teams, leadership, and Zynga stakeholders. Effective in one-to-one as well as one-to-many communication. Effective team collaborator and meeting facilitator
• Highly capable and experienced in Agile SCRUM, Kanban, team management, long and short-term project scheduling and execution
• Strong status and risk reporting skills including executive-level project reporting
• Effective at bringing order out of chaos, excellent prioritization and decision making skills
• Capable of being responsible for a defined area of a project, expected to provide best practice input and mentoring to the more junior members of the group
• A real passion for gaming, especially mobile

What we offer you

• Competitive salary and discretionary annual bonus scheme
• Create next-gen games that will be played and loved by millions of players around the world
• Work in a family-oriented, collaborative team that invests in your development and growth on-the-job
• A diverse team of friendly, fun and supportive co-workers
• Flexible working hours & crunch-free working culture
• Summer/Winter parties and weekly Happy Hour in the studio
• 26 days holiday + bank holidays, 2 paid personal days
• 6 months of fully paid maternity/adoption leave or 16 weeks of fully paid paternity leave (eligibility criteria apply)
• Pension plan with a double matching employer contribution (capped at 8%)
• Private medical insurance, dental insurance and healthcare cash plan
• Life insurance, accident insurance and long-term disability insurance
• Company Employee Stock Purchase Plan (ESPP) (eligibility criteria apply)
• Fitness Reimbursement plan worth £600 per annum
• Charitable Giving Platform to which the Company contributes a 2:1
• Annual season ticket advance and cycle to work scheme

We are an equal opportunity employer and we are committed to building a diverse and talented workforce. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, sex, religion, colour, national origin, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, medical condition, disability, or any other class or characteristic protected by applicable law. We welcome job-seekers, players, employees, and partners from all backgrounds to join us!

We will consider all qualified job-seekers with criminal histories in a manner consistent with applicable law.

We are committed to providing reasonable accommodations to qualified individuals with physical or mental disabilities in order to participate in the job application or interview process, to perform essential job functions, and to receive other benefits and privileges of employment.  Please contact us at accommodationRequest@zynga.com to request an accommodation associated with your application for an open position.

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