Production Lead

Role Description

Second Unit is looking for an experienced Production Lead for client game projects. This is a hands-on role. You'll lead production, but you'll also do the day-to-day production work.

• Comfortable building and maintaining schedules
• Running meetings
• Managing backlogs
• Tracking dependencies
• Identifying risks
• Working directly with developers
• Ensuring the team has what it needs to deliver

As Production Lead, you'll work across the entire team, partnering directly with each discipline lead and serving as one of Second Unit's primary day-to-day contacts with the client.

• Own the project plan and the day-to-day process of getting the work delivered
• Build schedules, manage scope, maintain the backlog
• Track progress and dependencies
• Run team meetings
• Identify risks early
• Ensure problems get in front of the right people before they become bigger problems

Establish a regular communication cadence with the client:

• Keep them informed about progress and upcoming milestones
• Surface risks and changes early
• Ensure expectations are clear on both sides

Work closely with the project's discipline leads, understanding the work well enough to ask good questions and challenge assumptions when necessary.

Qualifications

• Personally contributed to the development and launch of at least one AA or AAA game in a production role
• Experience managing development on a released game and delivering live or post-launch content
• Strong hands-on game production experience, including scheduling, backlog management, milestone planning, dependency tracking, and risk management
• Experience working directly with multidisciplinary development teams
• Experience leading and mentoring other producers
• Experience serving as a primary production contact for an external partner, publisher, client, or senior internal stakeholder
• Experience managing changing priorities and scope without losing sight of the larger project goals
• The ability to turn incomplete or changing information into a plan the team can actually execute
• A solid understanding of game-development pipelines and how art, design, engineering, QA, and other disciplines depend on one another
• Experience with common game-development production tools and workflows
• The ability to communicate project status, milestones, risks, scope changes, tradeoffs, and difficult news clearly and professionally
• The judgment and communication skills to work directly with client producers, discipline leads, and studio leadership

Requirements

• Professional experience with Jira, Confluence, Hansoft, ShotGrid, Perforce, Unreal Engine, Unity, or proprietary development tools

What We're Looking For

When you apply, we'd like to see more than a list of studios, projects, and job titles. Help us understand what you were actually responsible for.

• Tell us which games you've shipped, what part of the project you managed, the size and makeup of the teams you worked with, and what you personally owned
• If you've supported a game after launch, tell us about the DLC, live content, updates, or other post-launch work you helped deliver
• Share a project that didn't go according to plan, what happened, what you did about it, and how it turned out

What This Role Isn't

• This isn't a Production Director job where your primary responsibility is managing producers and reviewing reports
• It also isn't a project coordinator position
• You won't own the technical or creative decisions that belong to our discipline leads

How We Work

Second Unit is a remote-first U.S. studio. Our primary employment model is W-2 hourly.

• You'll be paid for every hour you work, including approved overtime when applicable
• Eligible employees receive monthly healthcare and hardware stipends
• You'll use your own workstation, provided it meets Second Unit's hardware and security requirements

The Person We're Looking For

• You like making complicated projects understandable
• You want to know what's actually happening, not just what the schedule says is happening
• You ask questions and raise problems early
• You build trust by communicating regularly
• You know that good production isn't about filling calendars with meetings
• When a project gets difficult, you get more involved, not less

Company Description

Second Unit works with established game studios that need to keep supporting successful games while their internal teams move on to what's next.

• Our U.S.-based teams work directly inside our clients' development pipelines
• Take responsibility for defined pieces of their roadmap, including DLC, live content, gameplay features, systems, and other player-facing work
• Our teams are led by experienced developers who are still actively involved in making the game