Scrum Master / Producer (Video Game Industry)

Your purpose (how you help mod.io)

You enable us to deliver industry leading features at the right time, across our in-game tech stack. Features that make UGC success massive and repeatable for every game using mod.io.  

You do this by managing the delivery of the prioritised work for our in-game tech which includes plugins for major game engines such as Unreal Engine and Unity, SDKs for C# and C++ and other associated technology of our UGC service. 

What you’ll be doing in the role (your responsibilities)

Product Priorities

• Convert the priorities provided by the Head of Game Services into a delivery plan (sprint plan), ensuring the highest priority work is delivered on time and to spec.  This involves managing delivery of multiple concurrent features, bug fixes, enhancements and other requests.
• Your comprehensive understanding of mod.io’s product priorities and technology enables you to make great calls when setting plans and resolving blockers.
• You easily recognise and adjust for nuances when dealing with requests as diverse as tech issues, bugs, studio requests, Product Focus Group priorities, new features, enhancements and tech debt.   
• Understand our in-game tech stack and can accurately identify the following at a level which enables you to efficiently set and deliver plans:
• technical impacts (eg: plugin relies on SDK),
• complexity (high, medium, low)
• required skill sets 
• effort (small, medium, large) 

Product Specifications

• For simple requests, you convert requirements into an agile delivery plan, write required cards, confirm estimates and add to sprints.  On very rare occasions, this may require input from the Tech Lead.
• For complex requests, you convert high level requirements (One Pager) and/or Technical Specifications (provided by the Tech Lead), into an agile delivery plan.  Some requests may involve discussions with the Tech Lead and/or Head of Game Services to clarify, discuss and refine the plan, including estimates and order of delivery.
• Ensure the designer is briefed on UX/UI requirements, write UX/UI tasks and ensure designs are signed-off.  Head of Game Services or Head of Product Services brief and sign-off on designs.
• Write tasks (epics / stories) for all work, ensuring they are sufficiently detailed to enable an engineer and QA to pick up the card and easily build and test without needing to seek additional (missing) information. 
• Ensure post-delivery maintenance and support is covered.

Product Delivery (driving an Engineering team)

• You understand desired live dates and the type of solution this dictates, and develop a plan to suit (resource allocation, scheduling, scope etc.).
• Manage sprint planning to ensure the most important work is done first (as set by the Head of Game Services), and we meet our desired live dates.  
• Provide advice on the impact of requested changes to current or future sprints to enable Head of Game Services to finalise decisions.
• Minimise changes to current sprint through great planning: you are constantly reviewing and refining the backlog and adjusting the allocation of tasks in future sprints.
• You keep the team accountable so they deliver the work allocated to the current sprint.
• Facilitate daily stand ups to ensure accountability for delivery of tasks, progress is made each day, and we remain on track on a daily basis.
• Work with the team to identify blockers and remove or resolve them. 
• Have a focus on constant improvement, ensuring we don’t repeat the mistakes of the past and recognise what is working well (via retros or other approaches).
• Work with the QA to ensure testing is accurate, robust, efficient and timely and support QA efforts as needed with hands-on testing / UAT.
• Confirm which tasks are ready for release as part of the deployment process. 
• Provide progress updates to Head of Game Services (via stand Ups, ClickUp boards or other mechanisms).
• Ensure all work has a task in ClickUp and status of work is clearly visible.
• Enable reporting as desired from ClickUp (eg: bugs v studio requests etc.) .
• Ensure Technical Support is completed for each feature going live.

Culture

• Embody our values, setting an example for others to follow, which strives for and delivers the best outcomes for our partners and prospects with the available resources.
• Embrace feedback, ensuring constructive feedback is given and received in the right way.
• Provide clear communication ensuring all interactions (meetings etc.) are effective and ensure processes are lightweight and serve a clear purpose.

Your skills and experience (what we think you need to be successful)

To be successful, you are an engineer who is happy to manage the work for a team of engineers, or an engineer who has already transitioned to a scrum master role. 

• Exceptional delivery capabilities including identifying value and prioritising competing requests in a complex, ambiguous environment.
• An engineer by trade, you have extensive experience coding in C++ or C# and experience with Unity, Unreal, and/or other commercial game engines. 
• You are Agile certified or have equivalent on-the-job experience.
• Ideally you have worked in the video game industry as an engineer, or worked as  part of a team(s) that shipped a commercial title, or maintained a live service game.
• You have excellent organisational skills and can effectively coordinate work across a large team (10+ engineers, one tester and one UX/UI designer).
• You easily convert high level requirements into detailed tasks ready for engineers to build and QAs to test.
• Excellent facilitation skills.
• Familiar with task-management software (ClickUp, Trello etc.).
• Excitement to dig in and experiment, with real attention to detail.
• It would be great if you also have:
• a solid technical understanding of APIs, data pipelines, web and mobile applications.

• a passion for video games and an understanding of the unique challenges UGC presents us and similar businesses like YouTube and Steam.