Associate Art Director, Outsourcing - Unannounced | Irvine, CA

Team Name:

Unannounced Project

Job Title:

Associate Art Director, Outsourcing - Unannounced | Irvine, CA

Requisition ID:

R024041

Job Description:

Your Mission

Blizzard Entertainment is seeking an Associate Art Outsource Director to help craft a new, unannounced game. As an Associate Art Outsource Director, you will help make our entire outsourcing department better at producing gorgeous assets and artwork as well as provide regular, timely, and detailed feedback to our external partners to make sure their work is consistently on time. Being the formal head of the team, you will be an active driver and enabler in team art discussions, critiques, and reviews. You're a listener and a voracious learner. You love being in a dynamic environment where collaboration is key in every aspect of development, and you value opportunities to grow through progress and experimentation.

This role is anticipated to be a hybrid work position, with some work on-site and some work-from-home. The potential home studio for this role is Irvine, CA.

Priorities can often change in a fast-paced environment like ours, so this role includes, but is not limited to, the following responsibilities:

• Oversee and manage both the internal art outsourcing team and external artists to support all aspects of art creation
• Provide art direction from concept to execution in 3D, ensuring consistency and efficiency throughout the process
• Maintain best practices, quality control, and a cohesive visual style
• Drive outsource development by scheduling and tracking incoming and outgoing asset.
• Create and manage the workflow and pipeline for all outsourcing art and animation
• Act as the main communication link between outsourcing partners and the internal team, ensuring smooth collaboration between internal team and external partners
• Communicate with the art director, art leads, production, design, and other departments to understand and deliver on external development needs
• Draft contracts, manage the outsourcing budget and payments, and maintain productive and creative relationships with outsourcing partners

Minimum Requirements

• 10+ years of outsource management experience or equivalent in a game development environment
• Demonstrated experience partnering with art leads and outsourcing managers to identify and nurture external development
• Experience creating and managing the workflow and pipeline of all outsourced tasks
• Skilled in managing communication of art team's feedback to external vendors and maintaining a strong creative relationship between external and internal art teams
• Able to generate detailed documentation, visual references, examples, procedures, and engine requirements to support external vendors
• Demonstrated extensive people management skills including career development for internal reports
• Expert level knowledge of all the various tools used to craft assets for modern game engines
• Ability to work creatively as part of a large or small group
• Proven mentorship to other outsourcing supervisors
• Self-starter and driver, excellent communicator, and an amazing team-player

Extra Points

• A strong passion and commitment for developing and playing games
• Excellent organizational skills
• Shows true excitement about how to leverage outsourcing to build efficient production pipelines that are continuously improved upon over time
• A solid foundation in traditional art
• Understanding of the visual style of Blizzard games and has a passion to push it to the next level

Required Application Materials:

• Resume
• Relevant portfolio demonstrating assets created by you, clearly showing game examples of your work
• Online portfolio of professional 3D work (personal work is also a plus

Your Platform

Best known for iconic video game universes including Warcraft®, Overwatch®, Diablo®, and StarCraft®, Blizzard Entertainment, Inc. ( www.blizzard.com ), a division of Activision Blizzard, which was acquired by Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT), is a premier developer and publisher of entertainment experiences. Blizzard Entertainment has created some of the industry’s most critically acclaimed and genre-defining games over the last 30 years, with a track record that includes multiple Game of the Year awards. Blizzard Entertainment engages tens of millions of players around the world with titles available on PC via Battle.net®, Xbox, PlayStation, Nintendo Switch, iOS, and Android.

Our World

Activision Blizzard, Inc., is one of the world's largest and most successful interactive entertainment companies and is at the intersection of media, technology and entertainment. We are home to some of the most beloved entertainment franchises including Call of Duty®, World of Warcraft®, Overwatch®, Diablo®, Candy Crush™ and Bubble Witch™. Our combined entertainment network delights hundreds of millions of monthly active users in 196 countries, making us the largest gaming network on the planet!

Our ability to build immersive and innovative worlds is only enhanced by diverse teams working in an inclusive environment. We aspire to have a culture where everyone can thrive in order to connect and engage the world through epic entertainment. We provide a suite of benefits that promote physical, emotional and financial well-being for ‘Every World’ - we’ve got our employees covered!

The videogame industry and therefore our business is fast-paced and will continue to evolve. As such, the duties and responsibilities of this role may be changed as directed by the Company at any time to promote and support our business and relationships with industry partners.

We love hearing from anyone who is enthusiastic about changing the games industry. Not sure you meet all qualifications? Let us decide! Research shows that women and members of other under-represented groups tend to not apply to jobs when they think they may not meet every qualification, when, in fact, they often do! We are committed to creating a diverse and inclusive environment and strongly encourage you to apply.

We are committed to working with and providing reasonable assistance to individuals with physical and mental disabilities. If you are a disabled individual requiring an accommodation to apply for an open position, please email your request to accommodationrequests@activisionblizzard.com . General employment questions cannot be accepted or processed here. Thank you for your interest.

We are an equal opportunity employer and value diversity at our company. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, age, marital status, veteran status, or disability status, among other characteristics.

Rewards

We provide a suite of benefits that promote physical, emotional and financial well-being for ‘Every World’ - we’ve got our employees covered! Subject to eligibility requirements, the Company offers comprehensive benefits including:

• Medical, dental, vision, health savings account or health reimbursement account, healthcare spending accounts, dependent care spending accounts, life and AD&D insurance, disability insurance;
• 401(k) with Company match, tuition reimbursement, charitable donation matching;
• Paid holidays and vacation, paid sick time, floating holidays, compassion and bereavement leaves, parental leave;
• Mental health & wellbeing programs, fitness programs, free and discounted games, and a variety of other voluntary benefit programs like supplemental life & disability, legal service, ID protection, rental insurance, and others;
• If the Company requires that you move geographic locations for the job, then you may also be eligible for relocation assistance.

Eligibility to participate in these benefits may vary for part time and temporary full-time employees and interns with the Company. You can learn more by visiting https://www.benefitsforeveryworld.com/ .

In the U.S., the standard base pay range for this role is $124,400.00 - $230,300.00 Annual. These values reflect the expected base pay range of new hires across all U.S. locations. Ultimately, your specific range and offer will be based on several factors, including relevant experience, performance, and work location. Your Talent Professional can share this role’s range details for your local geography during the hiring process. In addition to a competitive base pay, employees in this role may be eligible for incentive compensation. Incentive compensation is not guaranteed. While we strive to provide competitive offers to successful candidates, new hire compensation is negotiable.