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Principal Level Designer

ProbablyMonsters is looking for a creative, technical, and collaborative Principal Level Designer. You will join a team concentrated on building new game concepts and worlds centered around a focused player experience. As part of the Incubation team, you’ll have the freedom to create, experiment, and try new game ideas while forming new franchises and development teams. Everyone on the Incubation team is enthusiastic about helping to shape a culture of collaboration and trust while creating best-in-class games.

We are seeking a Principal Level Designer who is passionate about layout, traversal, gameplay pacing, and environmental storytelling to help us shape the world of an exciting new action-adventure role-playing-game IP. In this role, you will be the main advocate for the quality of environmental gameplay, collaborate heavily with the rest of the design, engineering and art teams to deliver amazing worlds that are exciting to explore and engage in combat within.

The salary range for this position is $169,000 – $262,000. This range represents the salary for the position commensurate with experience, knowledge, and demonstrated success in the field.

WHO YOU ARE:

• Able to clearly articulate your philosophies balancing gameplay needs within environments to create the best-in-class pacing for exploration, combat, and downtime to create an ideal level flow necessary
• Passionate about crafting a wide varieties of compelling gameplay spaces; from claustrophobic dungeons to labyrinthine streets, from grand cathedrals to hellish volcanic craters, to anything in between in a third person action game
• Obsessive about creating environments that serve the total game experience; combining combat, traversal, narrative, and art into spaces that simultaneously play amazing, look great, and clearly focus players where they need to explore
• You take pride in your ability to clearly articulate your goals and needs of a level space, contributing to development of best practices and fueling creativity in others
• You are knowledgeable about level design tools, workflow, and pipelines and can work directly with tools engineers to make sure we have what we need to ensure success
• Able to think modularly about level designs through leveraging block-out pieces to rapidly iterate on environments to find the fun and generate compelling variants of play spaces
• Able to understand, align, and adapt to high-level project design goals, fantasy, and audience expectations
• Collaborative, self-motivated developer, with a desire to grow & share knowledge
• Receptive to feedback from a variety of sources and confident enough to evaluate the best actionable response and what is not necessary to address
• Excited to play a key role in a new studio and team working as a tight knit team highly focused on delivering exciting gameplay in a new IP
• You show empathy and respect for our players and fellow team members

WHAT YOU WILL DO:

• Act as design expert in development of gameplay environments that partner with core game mechanics and systems to build worlds that are exhilarating to explore and slay enemies within
• Working directly in editor to create level layouts, including placement of combat encounters, items, puzzles, and traps
• Collaborate with the team and development partners through all phases of development, including working with product directors and production to effectively scope, prioritize, and deliver at the high quality levels that create a cohesive and memorable experience
• Be a leader in the identification of challenges with gameplay mechanics, game content, and workflow processes and devise creative solutions in cases where there will be limited information and requires adaptation to resolve
• Establish quality benchmarks that drive the team in reach them
• Work directly with Leadership to ensure that the vision is being properly executed and clearly executed
• Proactively provide updates on progress and development to the design team including communicating design progress and decision-making widely to ensure full visibility & strong alignment between disciplines
• Lead the work of testing features and identifying challenges with gameplay mechanics, game content, and workflow processes and find creative solutions to meet design goals
• Working with art and engineering to ensure that levels are well-optimized and meet an acceptable bar for performance
• Mentor other game designers to share your experience and insights to help them improve their craft

QUALIFICATIONS:

• Experience with Unreal Engine or equivalent 3D level design tools and workflow
• Expert knowledge and understanding of area of specialization, principles and practices within level and game design
• Ability to effectively identify, convey and reach alignment across disciplines on relevant needs and goals for achieving successful gameplay spaces
• Able to work with little to no instruction on day-to-day projects and end-to-end assignments utilizing best practices, independent judgement, skills, and previous experience to effectively execute on requests from stakeholders
• Recognized as a subject matter expert in level design
• You have a portfolio reflecting playable and completed work
• Strong communication, collaboration, and interpersonal skills
• Ability to establish department/function goals and objectives
• Strong conceptual thinking and ability to work on complex issues where analysis of situations or data requires an in-depth evaluation of variable factors
• Experience in mentoring other designers and providing insightful feedback on design efforts
• Requires a minimum of 8 years of related or equivalent work experience
• Experience in the design of at least two games on modern consoles (Xbox, PlayStation, Switch, PC etc.)

PREFERRED SKILLS:

• Experience utilizing Unreal Blueprint or equivalent scripting languages in your level design workflow
• Extensive knowledge of and/or previous experience in the level design of modern third-person character action and role-playing games
• Experience in feature ownership within game design of AAA game development
• Experience with encounter design and combat pacing
• Experience with various 3D art tools and workflows, including Maya/3DS Max, and/or Houdini
• Ability to craft functional and complex prototypes in Unreal Engine

OUR COMMITMENT TO YOU:

• A people-centric culture founded on respect, trust, approachability, and accountability.
• A stable home that values your potential, deeply cares about your work-life balance, and is committed to investing in your craft and long-term career.
• Competitive benefits package, including a sign-on bonus; annual stock option grants; health coverage (medical, dental, vision) paid at 100% for the employee and subsidized by the Company for dependents; Flexible Spending Account eligibility; life, accidental death, and disability insurance coverage; annual 401K contribution by the Company; Employee Assistance Program; and extensive paid time off plus holiday closures.

About ProbablyMonsters™

ProbablyMonsters is an independent AAA video game company that aims to change the way games are made and inspire a better industry for all. Our mission is to unite, guide, and empower talented teams to redefine what it means to create exceptional games. We secured the largest Series A raise in gaming history at $250 million, providing our teams the resources and creative environment needed to foster stable, life-long careers while delivering industry-defining games within a healthy, rewarding culture.