Lead External Development Manager

3 Days ago • 8 Years + • Business Development

Job Summary

Job Description

As Lead External Development Manager at Epic Games, you'll manage a team overseeing external vendors delivering high-quality content for Epic's first-party games, primarily Fortnite. Responsibilities include team mentorship, sourcing new partners, negotiating contracts, budget management, and ensuring efficient co-development practices. You'll collaborate with internal teams (finance, legal, procurement) and external vendors, providing performance feedback and fostering strong relationships. Ideal candidates possess extensive AAA game development experience in external development/outsourcing and a deep understanding of development best practices.
Must have:
  • 8+ years experience in external development/outsourcing for AAA games
  • Understanding of game development process and external developer integration
  • Strong organizational, communication, and leadership skills
  • Budget forecasting and management expertise
  • Contract negotiation and vendor management skills
Perks:
  • 100% employer-paid medical, dental, and life insurance
  • Supplemental benefits (meal vouchers, commuter benefits)

Job Details

WHAT MAKES US EPIC?

At the core of Epic’s success are talented, passionate people. Epic prides itself on creating a collaborative, welcoming, and creative environment. Whether it’s building award-winning games or crafting engine technology that enables others to make visually stunning interactive experiences, we’re always innovating.

Being Epic means being a part of a team that continually strives to do right by our community and users. We’re constantly innovating to raise the bar of engine and game development.

PRODUCTION

What 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

In this role, you’ll manage a team of External Development Managers focused on building co-dev capacity to ensure that multiple external vendors deliver high-quality content and development work. Key elements of this role are experience managing relationships with external partners, a strong understanding of best practices for external development, the ability to communicate effectively across multiple teams with exceptional transparency and planning, and a strong knowledge of how to properly structure, organize, mentor, and grow your team and external development efforts as a whole. The ideal candidate has shipped multiple AAA titles as an External Development / Outsourcing Manager or vendor-focused Producer.

In this role, you will

  • Drive the growth of the External Development Management team by providing strong mentorship, guidance, and growth opportunities, and creating or refining processes as the external development space evolves
  • Work with Fortnite leadership to understand, determine, and deliver on external development needs for co-development across all Epic first-party games. Actively source new co-dev partners to build additional capacity as needed
  • Draw on your experience managing AAA games and your deep understanding of development best practices to provide a vision for successful co-dev practices at Epic
  • Collaborate with Epic’s internal finance, legal, and procurement teams to understand industry standard rates for services and negotiate contract terms with external vendors
  • Be accountable for budget forecasting and management - proactively identifying opportunities to streamline costs, make process improvements, and increase efficiency
  • Manage appropriate contracts and invoice approvals, onboarding and handoff to Epic’s internal teams, and resource ramp-up for external teams
  • Drive the processes for tracking all external vendors - sourcing, evaluations, statements of work, and clearly defining expectations, and manage communications, both internal and external, by providing performance feedback to external vendors, while helping maintain strong relationships between external teams and internal stakeholders

What we're looking for

  • 8+ years of experience with external development/outsourcing, preferably for AAA games
  • Demonstrated understanding of the game development process and how multiple external developers can be integrated into a fast-paced and quality-focused project
  • Highly organized, self-driven, goal-oriented, and a great team player, able to work with some of the most talented developers in the industry
  • Strong ability to track, prioritize, and conscientiously follow through on multiple competing elements of work, in a timely fashion, across groups with varying interests
  • Clear and concise communication, leadership, and people skills

EPIC JOB + EPIC BENEFITS = EPIC LIFE

We pay 100% for benefits for both employees (EEs) and dependents (deps). Our current benefits package includes coverage for medical, dental, and life insurance. We also offer supplemental benefits including daily meal vouchers, and commuter benefits for onsite employees.

ABOUT US

Epic Games spans across 25 countries with 46 studios and 4,500+ employees globally. For over 25 years, we've been making award-winning games and engine technology that empowers others to make visually stunning games and 3D content that bring environments to life like never before. Epic's award-winning Unreal Engine technology not only provides game developers the ability to build high-fidelity, interactive experiences for PC, console, mobile, and VR, it is also a tool being embraced by content creators across a variety of industries such as media and entertainment, automotive, and architectural design. As we continue to build our Engine technology and develop remarkable games, we strive to build teams of world-class talent.

Like what you hear? Come be a part of something Epic!

Epic Games deeply values diverse teams and an inclusive work culture, and we are proud to be an Equal Opportunity employer. Learn more about our Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) Policy .

Note to Recruitment Agencies: Epic does not accept any unsolicited resumes or approaches from any unauthorized third party (including recruitment or placement agencies) (i.e., a third party with whom we do not have a negotiated and validly executed agreement). We will not pay any fees to any unauthorized third party. Further details on these matters can be found .

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About The Company

Founded in 1991, Epic Games is a leading interactive entertainment company and provider of 3D engine technology. Epic operates Fortnite, one of the world’s largest games with over 350 million accounts and 2.5 billion friend connections. Epic also develops Unreal Engine, which powers the world’s leading games and is adopted across industries such as film and television, architecture, automotive, manufacturing, and simulation. Through Unreal Engine, Epic Games Store, and Epic Online Services, Epic provides an end-to-end digital ecosystem for developers and creators to build, distribute, and operate games and other content. Epic has over 40 offices worldwide with headquarters in Cary, North Carolina.

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