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Senior Game Designer (Economy) - Star Wars

We are looking for a Senior Game Designer (Economy) to join us at Zynga Austin in creating Star Wars: Hunters ™ , a competitive arena combat game for the Nintendo Switch system and mobile devices. Star Wars: Hunters will bring players together to engage in thrilling, squad-based, multiplayer battles featuring a diverse array of distinctive new Star Wars characters.

Job Purpose

You will work hand in hand with other designers, product management, and creative leadership to design, balance, and maintain the economy and metagame progression.

You are a vocal advocate for the power of free-to-play gaming, and understand deeply and intuitively how free-to-play economies work. You are someone who wants to push the boundaries of what free-to-play can be, and look for next-generation methods for crafting innovative and fair metagames and economies. You can communicate that passion to the rest of the team and pass your knowledge along to others as an effective mentor and guide.

Key Roles & Responsibilities

• Collaborate with creative leadership product managers to build well-crafted economies and economic loops for free-to-play games
• Develop compelling metagame loops and progression models that retain players over the long-term
• Be a bridge between design and product management. Responsible for the design-facing side of major economic and metagame features
• Analyse and make smart use of data to assess efficacy of metagame and economic balance
• Lead major aspects of feature design in both a development and live operations capacity
• Approach the design of economies and metagame loops with a design-minded eye that looks for fun and sustainability in equal measure.
• You know that live data and metrics are a crucial tool in balancing a game economy, but that they work in harmony with your instincts as an experienced game maker.

Required Skills & Experience

• Experience in designing and balancing complex progression systems.
• Understanding the motivations that keep players coming back for more. You respect that our free players are as important to our success as our paying players, and balance systems to respect their time and deliver fun experiences
• Balanced and managed the metagame or economy for successful, live F2P games
• Experience with analysing and making decisions with live game metrics and data on a successful F2P game
• Deeply familiar with progression systems and metagame design in modern shooters and action games on all platforms
• Experience in leading the feature design process from conceptualisation and prototyping through polish and completion
• Able to communicate effectively with product managers, engineers, and other partners
• A believer in the power, reach, and potential of the next generation of mobile gaming

What do we offer?

• Competitive salary, bonus plan, Zynga RSU’s (Restricted Stock Units), ESPP (Employee Stock Purchase Plan)
• 401K Company Match Contribution
• Medical, dental, vision, EAP, life insurance, and disability benefits
• Virtual mental health and neurodiversity support programs
• Family planning support program
• Generous paid maternity/parental leave
• Subsidized Back-up child care
• Discretionary Time Off policy for many employees
• Flexible working hours on many teams
• Culture of diversity and inclusion including employee resource groups
• Work with cool people and impact millions of daily players

If this sounds like you, we want to hear from you! Your passion and experience for building original games will be instrumental as we bring together a brand-new collective of developers to tackle next-generation thinking and innovative products. As a leader, you will act as a key bridge in tight and effective collaboration with your UK-based counterparts.

Zynga is an equal opportunity employer. We are proud of our broad community; we do not discriminate on the basis of race, sex, religion, color, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, medical condition, disability, or any other class or characteristic protected by applicable law. We welcome job-seekers, players, employees, and partners from all backgrounds. Join us!

We will consider all qualified job-seekers with criminal histories in a manner consistent with applicable law.

Zynga is committed to providing reasonable accommodation to applicants with disabilities. If you need an accommodation during the interview process, please let us know.