Director of Development

Mojang Studios is best known as the creators of Minecraft, but we’re also on a mission – to build a better world through the power of play. 

Why play? Well, play is at the heart of everything we do. It’s the blocky backbone of our games, the core of our development philosophy, and even the origin of our name. From the relentless experimentation of our endlessly inspiring community to the classrooms where Minecraft has become an essential teaching tool, play is the bedrock of our existence. 

About the Role  

As Director of Development, you are a senior leader responsible for turning studio strategy into executable outcomes across multiple disciplines. You own the development operating system: planning, dependency management, production health, risk mitigation, cross-functional alignment, and delivery cadence. 

You lead delivery across a complex game development organization, ensuring that work moves coherently between design, engineering, platform, production, QA, and live operations. Through strong coordination, transparency, and execution excellence, you enable teams to build high-quality player experiences in a scalable and sustainable way, creating the conditions needed to turn ambitious visions into reality. 

Key Responsibilities   

• Representing delivery excellence on the Core Leadership Team 

• Accountable for delivery excellence across multiple departments, ensuring the organisation has the clarity, structure, tools, and ways of working needed to execute effectively 

• Owns delivery health across the full development cycle, including planning, progress visibility, risks, dependencies, trade-offs, and escalation paths 

• Connects organisational priorities to execution, translating leadership direction into clear operating rhythms, decisions, and delivery plans 

• Drives alignment across design, platform, engineering, production, QA, and live operations, ensuring teams are working against shared priorities and expectations 

• Establishes scalable delivery models for complex game development, improving how multiple teams plan, collaborate, execute, test and playtest, and deliver together 

• Provides leadership visibility on organisational readiness, delivery performance, key risks, dependencies, and strategic trade-offs. 

• Leading people manager excellence by strengthening the group with the right tools and systems, modeling people management excellence, coaching managers through complex leadership situations, and helping build consistency in how teams are supported 

• Promotes rituals, forums, and practices that strengthen team health, such as manager communities, craft communities, feedback loops, and spaces for learning, reflection, and continuous improvement 

What you’ll need to succeed 

• Proven experience leading large-scale game or software development organisations  

• Strong track record of delivering complex products and services in a live operating  environment 

• Proven experience implementing or improving development systems, delivery frameworks, forecasting, and organizational operating models 

• Deep understanding of game development, production, engineering, and cross-functional execution 

• Ability to operate effectively at both strategic and operational levels 

• Exceptional communication, influence, and stakeholder alignment skills 

• Passion for games, player experience, and empowering creative teams 

• Experience building, leading, and developing inclusive, high-performing team 

Leadership Characteristics 

• Brings clarity to ambiguity and alignment to complexity 

• Focuses on outcomes and player value rather than process for its own sake 

• Creates an environment where teams can do their best work 

• Balances creative ambition with delivery discipline and organisational effectiveness 

• Leads with trust, accountability, transparency, and integrity 

Bonus 

• Experience leading development organizations within AAA games or large-scale live-service products. 

• Experience scaling organizations through periods of growth, transformation, or increasing technical complexity. 

• Familiarity with modern planning approaches, portfolio management, and data-informed decision making. 

• Experience supporting geographically distributed or global development teams. 

What You Need to Know 
 
We’re looking for candidates who are eligible to work in Sweden. Since our hybrid work model requires three onsite days per week, you’ll need to be based in Stockholm to collaborate with your team and soak up the studio energy.

Mojang Studios 

Mojang Studios is a Microsoft-owned game developer. The company was founded in Stockholm, Sweden and has offices around the world, including Stockholm, Redmond, Tokyo, London, and Shanghai. We’re always working on new and exciting ways to expand the Minecraft universe.

Our community is global and incredibly diverse. We keep this in mind when developing anything, as we want people to feel included in Minecraft. And in recruiting, our goal is to make Mojang Studios as diverse as our community. 

We got started as a tiny indie developer, and part of our culture still reflects that heritage. But we’re also proud to belong to Xbox Game Studios, which creates unique opportunities to grow and develop.

To help us achieve amazing things, we have built an equally amazing studio space. Situated right on the water by Söder Mälarstrand, it’s filled to the brim with all the tools, toys and caffeine required to create world-class entertainment.

But in the end, it’s the people of Mojang Studios that make this place truly special. When you join, you’ll find yourself in the company of incredibly bright, warm, and creative individuals – all united and working toward a single goal. Come help us reach it!

Important note on resumes
Please make sure that all the information in your resume is accurate because we will conduct a thorough background check. Any discrepancies will lower your chances of getting to the next interview stage and we’d hate to miss out on an awesome candidate! Double check that any gap years are reflected in your history, and that your education and work experience are completely accurate. Good luck!