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Lead Mission Designer

Gearbox Software
Frisco Texas
3 years ago
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Lead Mission Designer

The Gearbox Entertainment Company is an award-winning creator and distributor of entertainment for people around the world. Gearbox Entertainment develops and publishes products through its subsidiaries, Gearbox Software and Gearbox Publishing. Gearbox Entertainment has become widely known for successful game franchises including Brothers in Arms and Borderlands, as well as acquired properties Duke Nukem and Homeworld. Gearbox’s ambition is to entertain the world and its key driving objectives include the pursuit of happiness for our talent, partners and customers, the prioritization of entertainment and creativity and a measured respect for profitability. For more information, visit www.Gearbox.com.

A Lead Mission Designer at The Gearbox Entertainment Company is a leadership and development role focused on assembling and leading a team of mission designers for a future Gearbox project. The Mission Design team works as part of the Worldbuilding group, which joins the level design, level art, mission design, and lighting teams together for the purpose of building rich, exciting worlds for our players to explore. The Mission Design team is responsible for the player’s narrative experience, and strongly linked to the Narrative team that is responsible for the broader narrative arch and characters’ experiences in the story.

A Lead Mission Designer is responsible for day-to-day management and direction of the Mission designers on their project. This role reports to the Worldbuilding Director and involves working hand in hand with the Creative Director, Tech Director and Narrative team to make sure that missions align with creative goals, strike the correct project tone, and meet technical standards. Candidates should have a proven skill set including group management, interactive storytelling, visual scripting, and interdisciplinary negotiation.

Candidates should be intimately aware of the types of Borderlands-style missions Gearbox has shipped in recent titles and bring new ideas to the table about how to push interactive storytelling in an online, co-op game. They should be comfortable in Unreal Engine and understand core concepts involved in FPS game, co-op, and online systems. Candidates should be passionate gamers who can speak articulately about modern games in our competitive space and where the industry is going. Successful candidates will show a passion and track record for storytelling, technical implementation, team building, communication, and leadership.

This role will evolve over time. Initial job duties will include working with tools developers to create our technical standards for how we will present stories in the game and managing a small team of mission designers to help prove out systems and implementations. As the project grows, the team size will increase to upwards of a dozen mission designers. Duties will grow to involve technical and creative review of missions, onboarding new hires, and mentorship of existing team members. This role will be expected to participate in marketing and promotion of the final product, including private and public demonstrations, travel, and public facing marketing.

Through it all, a Lead Mission Designer is expected to maintain a positive team environment, foster trust, and encourage positive, healthy behavior for their team. All leads at Gearbox are expected to contribute to building a company culture around creativity, profit, and happiness that attracts the best industry talent while also providing opportunities for new hires just starting in the industry.

Due to uncertainty around Covid-19, this role will start off as a full-time work-from-home job. Equipment will be provided by Gearbox. When it is safe to reopen our physical office, this job will be required to be on-site at our Frisco, TX studio.

Responsibilities:

  • Lead a team of mission designers, overseeing the creative and technical implementation of missions across a AAA FPS game
  • Work closely with the Narrative Team and Creative Director to build out core narrative tent poles make sure players experience memorable stories with meaningful player engagement
  • Work with tools developers to build and iterate tools and processes that allow the team to rapidly create amazing missions quickly
  • Coordinate with other Worldbuilding Team leads and producers to produce content on schedule and to a high standard of quality
  • Coordinate with the Lead Mission Designer and Lead Writer to make sure missions are meeting narrative and technical goals
  • Assist the Managing Director of Design with recruiting, hiring, and onboarding new Mission Designers
  • Provide feedback, mentorship, and coaching to the Mission Design team

Qualifications:

  • Multiple shipped AAA titles, preferably with some Unreal Engine experience
  • Prior leadership, directorship, or team management experience on a AAA project
  • Prior mission or narrative design experience in a shipped AAA project
  • Familiarity and understanding of the Borderlands franchise and core mission mechanics
  • Deep understanding of modern AAA games and their narrative mechanics

Gearbox Entertainment believes that all team members should be able to enjoy a work environment free from all forms of discrimination and harassment. We are committed to reflecting the diversity of the world we strive to entertain. As an Equal Opportunity Employer, we provide fair and equal treatment to all team members and applicants. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, national origin, disability, genetic information, pregnancy or maternity, veteran status, or any other status protected by applicable national, federal, state or local law.

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