Senior Videogame Designer (Remote)

Senior Videogame Designer (Remote)

Seismic Squirrel LLC

Job Title: Senior Videogame Designer

The Role: Designing gameplay, systems, mechanics, maps, and levels for our studio's videogames.

The Games: Narrative-driven RPG videogames set in an alternate-history 1930s New York City.

Experience: Senior Level – 10+ years of professional videogame design experience.
        Must have successfully shipped at least one videogame in a Senior Designer role.

Location: USA or Canada (Remote) – Must reside within the UTC-4 to UTC-8 timezones.

Company Size: ~24

Job Type: Contract-to-Hire -or- Employee (see below)

Pay: $45-65 USD per hour – Depends on skills and experience.

Overview

We are looking for a creative and resourceful Videogame Designer to join our team.  They will work with other departments to design, document, and implement a variety of game systems, mechanics, levels, and mission types.  This position requires excellent collaboration and communication with various stakeholders.  The job demands a clear understanding of the gameplay experience, player needs and expectations, a logical and systemic thinker, an iterative approach to development, a collaborative spirit, and an enthusiasm for our studio's genre of videogames.

The ideal candidate is driven to create a fun and cohesive gameplay experience, able to empathize with both new players and with experts of the genre.  They possess a sense of urgency and enjoy working with talented designers, engineers, writers, artists, testers, and management.

This is a remote position which requires regular collaboration online during our core work hours (9:30 AM – 4:30 PM Pacific), attending relevant team meetings (e.g. daily scrum, retrospectives, sprint planning, and design meetings).  Occasional calls during late evenings, nights, and early mornings should be expected for meetings with international collaborators.  Occasional travel may be expected.  Applicant must have an ergonomic and secure workspace separate from their personal activities and roommates during work hours.

Applicants must be authorized to work in the USA or Canada.  Whether an applicant qualifies for contract-to-hire or full-time employee, and the option to convert, depends on the applicant's location, skills, aptitude, fit, project needs and schedule, and pay expectations.  H-1B transfers and sponsorships are not available at this time.

For more information about Seismic Squirrel, go to http://www.SeismicSquirrel.com/

Quests

• Guide the design of gameplay, systems, and mechanics, including unit balancing, and in-game economy.
• Work with other departments to design and implement game levels and missions, including establishing mission objectives, level layout, and support the integration of art and narrative assets in Unity.
• Preside over design meetings and clearly document game designs in the requirements.
• Actively collaborate with the development team on the game concept and design.
• Effectively communicate needed mechanics to Engineering.
• Maintain outstanding UX quality throughout the game's design.
• Participate in internal game testing and feedback.
• Openly communicate with team members on progress and problems, define deliverables, and help to set realistic project timelines and expectations.
• Champion intuitive UX to ease new players into the game with an engaging first-time experience.
• Help predict, identify, and resolve user experience issues that could detract from player enjoyment.
• Help to identify where to add analytics instrumentation and interpret the resulting analytics data to improve the user experience.

Character Stats

• 10+ years of professional experience in the game design role through the full lifecycle of game development from start to finish:
  concept, design, prototype, production, content creation, testing, polish, launch, and support.
• Possess a strong understanding of combat and travel systems and mechanics and level design best practices.
• Expert as a Designer in Unity.
• Experienced integrating and implementing narrative within gameplay.
• Experienced working with professional narrative authoring tools (e.g. Articy, Arcweave, Pixel Crushers).
• Understand the unique needs and opportunities developing games for PC and console.
• Enthusiastic for quality gameplay and a familiarity with many games and genres, past and present.
• Passionate for the videogame industry and a desire to grow within it.
• Strong self-discipline, motivated, a self-starter with a drive for excellence.
• Organized, detail-oriented, able to work fast and loose or carefully with quality as needs require.
• Courteous and patient, able to give and receive constructive and inspirational feedback gracefully.
• Able to work effectively with people having a variety of personalities and backgrounds.
• Adaptable: The job can change according to the needs at hand and requires wearing various hats.
• Outstanding documentation, information organization, and cross-referencing skills.
• Strong written, visual, and verbal English language communication and presentation skills.
• Excellent problem-solving skills, resourceful, able to find solutions when needed.
• Able to balance and prioritize tasks to meet deadlines, working within agreed timeframes and budgets.
• Adept at working remotely using various collaboration tools.
• Has an ergonomic and secure workspace separate from their personal activities and roommates during work hours.
• Experienced applying UML in design.
• Proficient in Atlassian Jira and Confluence.
• Proficient in Microsoft Word, Excel, and Visio.
• Passionate to learn new tools and technologies.

Bonus Points

• Proficient using tools for art (e.g. Adobe), modeling (e.g. Blender, 3ds Max), and design (e.g. Adobe XD, Figma).
• Located in one of our hub metros: Seattle, Los Angeles, Edmonton, or Austin.

The Company

Seismic Squirrel is a close-knit fully remote videogame studio with a passion for developing thoughtful story-based games.  Our nimble size allows for everyone to have a voice in the projects we create, demanding the ability to be both detail-oriented and flexible.

If this sounds like an exciting opportunity for you and you're located in the USA or Canada, please submit both your Résumé and your Cover Letter to Seismic Squirrel.

Compensation: $45-65 USD per hour – Depends on skills and experience