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Lead Level Designer

Would you like to work on some of the greatest franchises in gaming history? Certain Affinity brings an exceptionally talented group together to form the largest independent developer in Austin, Texas, and opened a second studio in Toronto, Canada last year. Our company culture reflects the vibrant nature of the cities we call home. This includes a commitment to our evolution, excellence, and work-life balance. Our Toronto studio will collaborate with our Austin location, and together we’ll be co-developing AAA FPS games and creating our own compelling new IP.

As Lead Level Designer at Certain Affinity, you are responsible for creating, managing, and directing the levels for AAA shooters. You will work extensively with the mission, gameplay, and world teams to develop requirements for in-game spaces. Your wide range of skills encompasses both the creative and technical worlds, allowing you to successfully arrange and balance the flow of game spaces so that both players, AI, and mission systems have cohesive experience.

If you have extensive experience creating and directing level designs, considerable leadership experience, are eager to have an impact, motivated to support the needs of both development teams and external partners, and are open to new challenges, we’d like to hear from you.

Responsibilities

• Create, direct and manage the development of game levels for a AAA shooter
• Ensure the convergence of levels and gameplay loops to eliminate friction for the player experience
• Define and drive quality with regards to the flow of created game spaces
• Collaborate with the development team to brainstorm creative ways to implement and showcase the game’s core mechanics through level design
• Drive the design and creative process for game levels, working with other teams to create objectives, challenges, puzzles, and events that fit within game spaces
• Collaborate with the narrative and mission team of designers, engineers, cinematic artists, and writers to ensure the local and overarching narrative is being told in the levels
• Assist the Lead Game Designer in reviewing levels, as well as full builds of the game and providing weekly feedback to the project leads and development team
• Help drive playtests to gather critical level feedback from players and develop a plan of action to address issues

Requirements

• At least five years of experience as a level designer and two years of experience as a manager in game development
• Shipped at least one AAA Shooter PC or console title in a Lead Level Designer role
• Experience leading and supporting a quality-driven team
• A thorough grasp of good level design principles (difficulty, risk, and reward, pacing, tension, etc.)
• Proven ability of supporting narrative through level design
• Ability to use world-building tools such as UnrealEd, Radiant, Max and/or Maya
• Experience with advanced scripting or coding
• Strong analytical and problem-solving skills and methodology
• Ability to collaborate with cross-discipline teams including art, audio, engineering, and narrative
• Thrives in a highly iterative, highly collaborative environment
• A desire to work in a diverse and inclusive environment
• Passionate about gaming and game development

Extra Credit

• Experience developing for Xbox One or PS4