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Lead Designer

At Iron Galaxy Studios, our teams support a healthy work-life balance, promote continuous improvement, and champion a diverse people-focused culture. We encourage Designers from every heritage, lifestyle, or background to apply.

See why we have been certified by Great Place to Work and GamesIndustry.biz.

This position is available in Chicago, IL, or Orlando, FL, with relocation options for out-of-state applicants.

Iron Galaxy Studios is looking for experienced Game Designers to lead exciting new projects in a supportive and healthy work environment. You will lead a collaborative design team through ideation, consensus building, prototyping, implementation, and the rapid iteration of features. In this role, you’ll champion great player experiences, help own features, and assist in maintaining excellent relationships with our high-profile development and publishing partners.

A game design career at Iron Galaxy means you will have the opportunity to develop a wide array of projects in various development cycles. The studio develops over a dozen projects each year, including original IPs, co-developed games with proven industry partners, and top-quality ports of existing high-profile games to new platforms. The future for this role offers unique opportunities to work on a wide variety of project genres including AAA FPSs, MMOs, tactical fighting, casual simulation games, and more! Our unique and sustainable development environment offers rewarding and ever-changing opportunities to work on notable, top-tier projects.

RESPONSIBILITIES

• Establish and own a game’s design vision while empowering designers to be feature owners
• Work with production and design managers to estimate and schedule design resources
• Actively contribute to an inclusive work environment where everyone is valued

• Collaborate with Leads from other disciplines to prioritize game features for development
• Lead a team of designers-- giving and receiving feedback with healthy candor and respect
• Practice adaptability and complex problem-solving
• Handle difficult conversations both with individual designers as well as partners
• Foster collaboration and feedback on game features during design and implementation

• Lead by example with hands-on implementation, iteration, and tuning of systems and features
• Own game design and ensure quality, player-focused gameplay
• Design with passion at any phase of development: ideation, prototyping, iteration, and polish
• Prepare playtest criteria and analysis to foster meaningful iterations to improve player experience
• Provide white-glove service for development and publishing partners

REQUIRED SKILLS

• A foundation in professional game design resulting in a set of fun and engaging gameplay features
• Shipped at least one game in a Sr or Lead Designer role on PC or Console
• Implementation and iteration on features in-engine (visual or text scripting logic)
• Experience working in industry-standard engines and software

• Capable of being self-sufficient, highly collaborative, and helping to manage planning and client expectations
• Strong understanding of interactive design
• Documented and shared ideas and feedback concisely and constructively in a professional setting
• Strong communication, organizational, and leadership skills

Here’s our wish list for the ideal Lead Designer at Iron Galaxy. If you possess many or most of these qualities, you may very well be the one we’re looking for!

• Experience with or an affinity for casual sim games
• Experience working with publishers or co-development partners
• Professional experience directly managing one or more other designers and offering professional developmental mentorship
• Experience working on a variety of games and genres
• Experience developing on a variety of current platforms (PC, Xbox, PS, Nintendo, etc.)

• Experience working in a 3D package (Maya, Max, or equivalent)
• Experience or skills in other game development disciplines (programming, art, animation, project management, etc.)

ABOUT US: Iron Galaxy is one of the world’s largest independent video game developers with 60+ shipped titles. Our people combine their talents to create amazing ports, epic remasters, and new experiences from the ground up. We partner with the top companies in the gaming industry to co-develop and support AAA game creation at the highest level.

Safety Notice: Iron Galaxy employees can elect to work from home until March of 2022. This policy extends to hires between now and then. Any equipment that you might need for projects will be shipped to you directly.