Linguist Lead

As a leading game localization company, we offer integrated text, audio localization and localization QA for all regions, languages and platforms, ensuring a fully authentic offering for players worldwide.

Our global footprint across Asia, Oceania, Europe, and the Americas enables us to run 24-hour follow-the-sun workflows, our professional translators and game developers continue to work on your project around the clock, delivering on even the most challenging timelines.

The team at Keywords Studios handle media localization and translation services for any project size, from indie to AAA games. We help you speak to global audiences by translating your games for your target language and dialect, and ensure expert quality control throughout the game development and translation process through both technology solutions and human oversight.

The Linguist Lead is responsible for leading and developing a team of in-house linguists and a content expert, ensuring high-quality output and reliable delivery. This role combines team leadership, quality, and client communication, with a focus on coaching team members, managing workload distribution, and maintaining strong collaboration with cross-functional stakeholders.

The Linguist Lead is expected to take strong ownership of their team, communicate clearly and proactively, and keep stakeholders consistently informed. Operating effectively in a fast-paced environment, they make sound operational decisions and adapt to evolving tools and workflows, including AI-assisted processes, to drive team performance and quality outcomes.

Responsibilities

Team Leadership & Management

• Lead a team of in-house linguists and a content expert, fostering a collaborative and accountable team environment
• Conduct regular 1:1 meetings to provide performance feedback, mentorship, and ongoing development support
• Onboard new linguists, ensuring smooth integration into the team, tools, and workflows
• Address team conflicts and challenges in a timely manner, escalating major issues to the Production Manager as needed
• Support recruitment by participating in candidate evaluation and assessing linguistic expertise

Quality, Delivery & Operations

• Be accountable for the linguists' quality and performance, ensuring outputs and timelines meet or exceed expectations
• Monitor and drive quality performance using established frameworks and metrics
• Identify and manage quality issues within the team
• Coordinate workload distribution across the team to balance capacity and protect quality
• Execute day-to-day operations of established tools and workflows, and support rollout and adoption of new ones
• Surface workflow and process issues and improvement opportunities

Cross-Functional & Client Collaboration

• Act as the primary point of contact for clients on linguistic quality and related operational topics, coordinating with the Production Manager on broader account matters
• Work closely with cross-functional stakeholders on volumes, capacity, linguistic quality, and localization operation
• Collaborate with the Tokyo Linguist Lead as a peer to align cross-site linguist team management and ensure consistent standards and practices
• Keep the Production Manager informed on team performance, risks, and key updates