Program Manager - (US-WA-Redmond - 98074)

Minimum Education: None
Jobcode: L:99378556
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Job Title: Program Manager Job Category: Program Management Product: (Not Product Specific) Date Posted: 02/11/2009 Job Code: 253370 Location: WA - Redmond Travel Required: The Global Partner Publishing Group (GPP) within Microsoft's Entertainment and Embedded Devices Division is seeking a strong candidate to take on a senior producer role in Microsoft's high profile video game business. We are seeking an experienced, effective, and passionate producer to deliver high quality games from our 3PP publishing partners. A successful candidate will have the knowledge, creativity, discipline, and people skills to drive production processes while successfully working with internal MS production teams while maintaining work relationships with key Microsoft publishing partners and delivering titles to market. The GPP team specializes in the worldwide distribution of games for external publishing partners. The successful candidate will effectively partner with multiple internal teams including: the global account management team; global and regional product marketing and PR teams; production resources from user research, user experience, test, game evaluation, design, global and local localization teams; finance, and LCA to support the production efforts of GPP titles. This position will require the candidate to be able to successfully interface with multiple levels management (from the executive to the line-level production people) both internal and external to Microsoft across multiple business cultures in North America, Japan, Europe and Asia to support the release of our titles from the game pitch through the development cycle to shelf. Our ideal candidate is a self-motivated individual with significant game production experience. The decision-making and superior problem-solving skills are a must. Game design skills would be bonus. This candidate will act as a strong advocate for our publishing partners while adhering to pertinent MS best practices & processes. Responsibilities include: -Effectively communicating with external publishing and development partners, internal teams, and senior management; -Scheduling and milestone management with internal (user research, marketing, UX, print, geops, test, cert, legal, product support services) and external teams (publishers, vendors); - Coordinating, motivating, driving and leading internal and external teams to drive product through release; -Effectively balancing and resolving conflicts between quality, schedule, resources, and market needs; -Identifying and mitigating risks through the release cycle; - Managing vendor relationship for hand-offs/hand-backs for translation, audio, geopolitical reviews, print and writing; - Delivering quality games assets within tight schedules & budgets; Qualifications: -Minimum four years of experience producing/ program managing games with a solid background of demonstrated success managing products through the development and release cycles, preferably shipping some Xbox 360 titles. -Minimum five years of experience in the games industry, preferably in production or game design. -Passion for and knowledge of games. The first requirement is to love video games. The second is to understand what makes a great video game. - Demonstrated excellence in problem solving; proactive in a fast-paced, multi-cultural environment -Strong cross-team communication skills. You can talk to creative's (e.g. artists and game designers), technical people (e.g. programmers), and non-technical people (e.g. PR and Marketing) alike. -Deal with ambiguity. There is no instruction manual on how to be a great game PM, especially when working with different publishers, all with different strengths, weaknesses and needs. -Must have excellent interpersonal, organizational & communication skills