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Lead Systems Designer

Crystal Dynamics, a part of the Square Enix family and the studio behind Marvel’s Avengers and the award-winning Tomb Raider game franchise, is constantly on the hunt for top-tier gaming talent worldwide. We pride ourselves on attracting and developing the best talent available to concept, create, and contribute to the most exciting projects in gaming. Our 30 years of game development experience, as well as our combined AAA games industry pedigree, has established us as one of best studios to work for today. Join us and help shape the future of the award-winning Tomb Raider franchise, Marvel’s Avengers, and the next Perfect Dark!

Benefits for this full-time position include a competitive salary, 100% employer-paid medical, dental, and vision insurance options and plenty of days of paid time-off.

Position Summary

Come be a part of the next Perfect Dark!

Crystal Dynamics is on the hunt for an experienced Lead System Designer (Core Systems). As a Lead System Designer, you will be responsible for leading the team to design, plan, prototype and build systems for core systems including meta progression, game flow, RPG mechanics, settings, quests, challenges, and more. Both theory and hands on work will be required, including a drive for strong documentation and paper design.

Essential Duties & Responsibilities

• Lead and mentor a team of systems designers across multiple feature sets
• Promote collaboration amongst designers and directors, objectively breakdown design principles and provide feedback when appropriate
• Work closely with engineers and other disciplines to produce clear, concise and fun mechanics and rules

• Coordinate the implementation and quality of features from inception through to shipping, across all disciplines to ensure success
• Design, adapt and scope features to the needs of production, the technical constraints of the project and the overall game goals
• Maintain, test, iterate features from concept phase to final tuning

Competencies, Skills & Knowledge

• Clear, analytical thinker, with a proven ability to break gameplay design down into regular, reusable systems and articulate and document them

• Understanding system constraints as well as an understanding of game engine architecture and custom toolsets and able to deliver assets within the confines of real time engine constraints and programming demand
• Experience designing and tuning core systems
• Must have the ability to conceptualize, present, and execute ideas within a schedule, while actively participating in technical and design problem solving in engine
• Ability to work closely with all project disciplines to ensure clear communication, troubleshooting and efficiency
• Excellent knowledge of game design theory and principles

Essential Requirements

• Game Design (specifically core systems) experience working on a quality PC/Console shipped title
• Visual scripting experience (ie Kismet, Blueprint, etc.) within proprietary and/or commercial game engines is a plus
• Understanding of progression, game flow, and player experience collaborating closely with engineers and other designers

We are committed to identifying and implementing positive and persistent measures to ensure equal opportunity in the recruitment, hiring, development, training, promotion and compensation of a diverse team employee group. This includes persons of different race, color, creed, religion, sex, gender identity or gender expression, pregnancy, breastfeeding or medical conditions related to breastfeeding, genetic characteristic, sexual orientation, national origin, ancestry, medical condition, political affiliation, age, veteran status, uniform service member status, marital status, physical or mental disability, or citizenship, as well as any other classifications protected by applicable federal, state or local laws.