Operations Director

Craft:

Games Design & Production

Job Description:

We are looking for an Operations Director to strengthen how Soda plans, aligns, and executes across the studio. You will work closely with senior leaders across Product, Tech, Creative, Insights, and Operations to ensure our priorities are clear, our ways of working are predictable, and the organisation has what it needs to deliver effectively.

This is a role for a proactive problem-solver and excellent communicator with strong commercial and operational experience; someone who thrives in fast-moving environments, brings structure to complexity, and drives clarity and alignment across diverse teams

ROLE OVERVIEW

As Operations Director, you will lead Soda’s strategic and operational rhythms: planning cycles, prioritisation, strategy execution, and cross-team alignment. You will define and continuously improve Soda’s ways of working across discovery, pre-production, delivery, and live operations, reducing friction, increasing alignment, and ensuring predictable execution across teams.

Reporting into Head of Game Operations, you will lead an agile, high-impact Operations function and own critical cross-Soda initiatives that require senior coordination, structured problem-solving, and strong follow-through.

MAIN RESPONSIBILITIES

Planning & Strategic Alignment

• Lead Soda’s strategy and planning cycles, ensuring prioritised goals, clear trade-offs, and shared alignment across functions.
• Define and prioritise the Operations team’s roadmap, targets, and focus areas.
• Maintain visibility on progress toward strategic objectives and surface risks early.

Operational Excellence

• Improve Soda’s ways of working across discovery, pre-production, delivery, and live operations.
• Reduce friction by establishing scalable processes, clear ownership, and predictable execution systems.
• Collaborate with leaders in Product, Tech, Creative, and Analytics to identify and solve cross-team operational challenges.

Product & Business Partnership

• Work closely with senior stakeholders to maintain shared understanding of goals, risks, dependencies, and priorities across Soda.
• Contribute to product and business discussions with strong commercial and operational insight, without requiring deep product expertise.
• Support strategic decision-making by framing options, trade-offs, and business implications clearly.

Business Narratives & Leadership Communication

• Prepare clear business narratives and decision-ready materials for S&OP, KTRs, leadership updates, and business reviews.
• Synthesise complex information into concise, actionable insights that enable fast, informed decisions.
• Ensure leaders have the context, framing, and data needed to align quickly and confidently.

Leading the Operations Function & Cross-Soda Initiatives

• Lead and develop a high-impact Operations function, ensuring clarity of scope, focus, and execution standards.
• Drive key cross-Soda initiatives requiring senior ownership, structured problem-solving, and strong cross-functional alignment.
• Leverage expertise across Product, Tech, Creative, and Analytics to deliver improvements that scale across the organisation.

VALUABLE SKILLS & EXPERIENCE

• Proven operational leadership experience, preferably in gaming or consumer app products, with experience of live operations
• Strong ability to design and scale ways of working across multi-disciplinary teams.
• Excellent communication and narrative skills; able to simplify complexity and create clarity for diverse stakeholders.
• Strong commercial understanding and the ability to contribute meaningfully to product and business framing.
• Skilled stakeholder manager with the ability to build alignment and influence without hierarchy.
• Pragmatic, collaborative leadership style grounded in clarity, humility, and problem-solving.
• Experience driving strategic execution and organisational improvements is a strong plus.

About King

With a mission of Making the World Playful, King is a leading interactive entertainment company with more than 20 years of history of delivering some of the world’s most iconic games in the mobile gaming industry, including the world-famous Candy Crush franchise, as well as other mobile game hits such as Farm Heroes Saga. King games are played by more than 200 million monthly active users. King, part of Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT), has Kingsters in Stockholm, Malmö, London, Barcelona, Berlin, Dublin, San Francisco, New York, Los Angeles and Malta. More information can be found at King.com or by following us on LinkedIn, @lifeatking on Instagram, or @king_games on X.