Head of Post Production - Maternity Cover (12-15mths)

Contract: Fixed-term maternity cover until the end of 2027

About Side

Side is a global video game development and services provider, delivering technical and creative solutions to many of the world's leading game developers and studios.

Founded in 2009 and drawing on more than 30 years of experience through our parent company in Japan, Side has grown into a global business with studios across North America, Europe, South America and Asia.

Our services span game development, art production, audio production, quality assurance, localisation, localisation QA, player support, community management and datasets.

We are looking for an experienced Head of Post Production to lead our global Post Production function during a period of maternity cover.

The Role

As Head of Post Production, you will be responsible for the overall leadership, performance and development of Side's global Post Production function.

This is a senior leadership role combining audio Post Production expertise, people leadership, operational management, commercial responsibility and workflow transformation.

You will provide strategic and operational oversight across people, resources, quality, technology, workflows, capacity and continuous improvement, ensuring we consistently deliver high-quality audio Post Production services that meet client expectations and commercial objectives.

Working closely with Production, Audio, Finance and other business functions, you will ensure the department has the capability, resources and processes required to support both current and future client demand.

You will also lead and develop our Post Production Managers and wider team, establish clear technical and operational standards, and help evolve the function through improved workflows, automation and new technologies.

What You'll Be Doing

Leadership & Team Development

• Lead and develop the global Post Production function, creating a collaborative, accountable and high-performing environment.
• Provide leadership and direction to Post Production Managers and the wider team.
• Set clear departmental objectives, priorities and performance expectations.
• Coach and develop managers and team members, building capability and supporting career progression.
• Identify skills and capability gaps and implement appropriate development or recruitment solutions.
• Support succession planning and the effective rollout of new initiatives.
• Partner with HR on organisational structure, recruitment, performance, progression and employee matters.
• Empower managers to lead effectively rather than becoming unnecessarily involved in every day-to-day operational decision.

Operations, Capacity & Resource Management

• Maintain overall accountability for the effective delivery of Post Production services.
• Oversee resource and capacity planning across multiple concurrent projects.
• Ensure resources are allocated effectively while balancing client requirements, employee workload and commercial considerations.
• Work with Audio leadership to research and introduce more efficient workflows and technologies.
• Monitor operational performance and address significant delivery risks, capacity constraints and resourcing issues.
• Maintain effective escalation processes for complex technical, resource and client matters.
• Partner with Production and other teams to support effective project planning and delivery.
• Ensure robust processes are in place for project documentation, asset management, archiving and workflow control.

Quality & Technical Leadership

• Establish and maintain appropriate Post Production quality and technical standards.
• Ensure dialogue editing, QA, mastering and other Post Production services consistently meet client specifications.
• Maintain oversight of significant quality issues and ensure appropriate corrective action is taken.
• Ensure the team maintains the technical expertise required to support our services.
• Maintain oversight of Post Production hardware, software, DAWs and related technologies.
• Provide sufficient technical leadership and credibility to support and challenge specialist teams without needing to personally execute every technical task.

Commercial & Financial Management

• Develop and manage the Post Production departmental budget in partnership with Finance and senior leadership.
• Monitor utilisation, resource costs, overtime and external or freelance expenditure.
• Ensure resourcing decisions support project budgets and wider commercial objectives.
• Use operational and financial performance data to identify opportunities to improve efficiency and profitability.
• Support commercial assessment and capacity planning for new and expanding client opportunities.
• Provide Post Production input into pricing, resource requirements and capacity discussions.
• Identify and escalate potential financial or operational risks.

Client & Stakeholder Management

• Act as the senior Post Production point of contact for significant client, quality and technical matters.
• Build strong relationships across Production, Audio, Finance and other internal functions.
• Provide expert Post Production input into client discussions where required.
• Support the resolution of complex or escalated client issues.
• Work closely with other department heads to ensure effective cross-functional delivery.
• Represent Post Production within senior operational and business discussions.
• Ensure client feedback and lessons learned are incorporated into future processes and service development.

Strategy, Technology & Continuous Improvement

• Develop and implement the Post Production operational roadmap in line with wider business objectives.
• Identify opportunities to improve quality, efficiency, scalability and commercial performance.
• Lead the development and implementation of improved workflows, automation and technology.
• Use AI-assisted tools and automated workflows to improve the efficient processing of large volumes of audio files.
• Develop Post Production capabilities to support new services and changing client requirements.
• Establish appropriate departmental KPIs and use operational data to identify trends and improvement opportunities.
• Ensure lessons learned are translated into meaningful operational improvements.
• Collaborate with global teams to develop consistent standards and share best practice.

What We're Looking For

You will bring substantial commercial audio Post Production experience together with genuine leadership and operational responsibility.

We are particularly interested in candidates with:

• 7+ years' relevant experience within commercial audio Post Production, ideally within video games, localisation, entertainment or creative services.
• Significant experience operating in a Post Production leadership or management role.
• Demonstrable experience leading, coaching and developing technical or creative teams and managers.
• Strong knowledge of dialogue editing, QA, mastering and commercial audio Post Production workflows.
• Demonstrable experience using AI-assisted tools and automated workflows to process high volumes of files efficiently, ideally across multiple languages.
• Strong working knowledge of Pro Tools and other relevant DAWs and audio technologies.
• Experience managing resource and capacity planning across multiple concurrent projects.
• Experience managing departmental or project budgets and understanding the commercial impact of resourcing decisions.
• Experience monitoring areas such as utilisation, overtime, freelance or external spend and operational performance.
• Demonstrable experience designing and improving workflows, processes and operational standards.
• Strong client-facing and senior stakeholder-management experience.
• Experience working within a high-volume, deadline-driven commercial services environment.
• Strong analytical capability and experience using KPIs and operational data to inform decisions.
• Experience working across multilingual or localisation projects would be highly advantageous.

What Success Looks Like

The strongest candidates will combine:

Audio Post Production expertise + people leadership + operational management + commercial awareness + workflow and automation transformation.

You will be comfortable operating strategically while retaining enough technical credibility to lead experienced Post Production professionals.

You will understand how decisions around people, technology, capacity and workflows affect quality, client satisfaction, cost and profitability, and you will be able to translate that understanding into practical improvements across the function.

Our Working Environment

We are looking for someone who is:

• Strategic and commercially minded - able to connect operational decisions with client outcomes and financial performance.
• People and development focused - able to coach, delegate and build capability through managers and teams.
• Quality driven - committed to maintaining strong technical and creative standards.
• Collaborative and influential - comfortable working across Production, Audio, Finance, HR, senior leadership and clients.
• Forward thinking and solutions focused - willing to challenge existing processes, embrace new technology and improve how Post Production operates at scale.

You will also be expected to promote the safety and comfort of colleagues, freelancers, talent, clients and vendors, and to ensure compliance with Side's security, confidentiality, IT, HR, health and safety and ethical standards.

Join Side

Help us bring stories to the world.

Join a global team working across some of the world's most exciting games and entertainment projects, and play a key role in shaping how Side's Post Production function operates, develops and scales.

Find out more about Side at www.side.inc.