Bethesda Softworks Inside the Vault Q&A

Another interview on Bethesda's blog, this time with lead producer Gavin "Kathode" Carter.
What was the best part about working as a producer? The worst part?
The best part is, more than any other discipline, production lets you see game development from every angle available. On any given day, I might be hounding a programmer to fix a nasty physics bug, going over new creature textures with artists, listening to a brand new track that from our composer, interviewing a potential new hire, discussing some interface element in a meeting with programmers, artists, and designers together, or any of dozens of other things. You can get your hands into a lot of tasty pies.

The worst part is that as producer, it's your job to keep all of those various areas together and working in step with each other. In a loose sense, a producer has the sum responsibility of everyone they manage. So when you're working towards big deadlines, the pressure can start to build exponentially as you try to manage and communicate the hundreds or thousands of data points that are constantly changing under you each and every moment of the day.