The official EA Blog posted an interview with Sha Sha (Patricia) Chu, the Gameplay Engineering Development Directer for The Sims label.  The interview is possibly one of the best in-depth ones I’ve read in awhile – really goes into great detail about her job as a Project Manager as well as a Development Director (DD) for The Sims 3, World Adventures and Ambitions.  Here’s a brief snippet:

So, what’s your name and job title?
My name is Sha Sha Chu, and I’m a Development Director (DD) on the Sims 3 Expansion Pack (EP) team.

Ah. So for all those expansions that you guys do, what is it that you do as the Development Director?
Specifically, I’m the DD for the Gameplay Engineering cell. What we call DD’s here is probably what other companies might call Project Managers.

So I’m responsible for scheduling all of the gameplay engineers, and making sure they hit all of their milestones on time. I’m also the point of contact for production and design whenever they have gameplay work that needs to be done. And beyond that, I also manage the gameplay engineers, and I’m responsible for their care, feeding, career development, etc.

Development Director sounds a lot cooler than Project Manager. But is it safe to assume that before you were a DD you were a gameplay engineer? What’s your background like?
Yes, I was a gameplay engineer. But across the team, the DD’s for each cell do not necessarily have the same background as the cells they run.

As for myself, I started at EA as an engineering intern on the Knockout Kings team in 2002. Then I came back full-time in 2003 as an engineer in the Central Technology Group for EARS (EA Redwood Shores), now Visceral, and did some development on an in-house animation tool and an in-game cinematics system.

Then I became a gameplay engineer on the now canceled Lord of the Rings: The White Council project. And after that, I transferred to the Sims studio and was a GPE (gameplay engineer) for the original MySims, Sims 3 Base Game, and the Sims 3: World Adventures (EP1).

I transitioned to a DD for Sims 3: Ambitions (EP2).

full interview here

Thanks to Marleen for pointing this out on EntirelySims!