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Senior Systems Designer
1 year ago
Located in thriving Austin, Texas, Airship Syndicate was founded by four industry vets formerly of Vigil Games - the house that Darksiders built. Led by visionary comic artist Joe Madureira, we work with a wide group of talented contributors located both in our studio and around the world. Our projects include Battle Chasers: Nightwar, Darksiders Genesis, Ruined King: A League of Legends Story, and the upcoming Wayfinder.
Our goal is simple: build a lean, fun, independent game studio to create top-quality games for a variety of gaming platforms.
Do you love rewarding players for their time with compelling progression and challenging difficulty curves? Are you driven mad by imperfect loot systems? Do you see DPS spreadsheets in your sleep? Do you love jamming on ideas with motivated teammates? If yes, read on.
We’re looking for an experienced systems designer with a passion for creating, balancing, and maintaining various progression systems.
RESPONSIBILITIES:
- Work with design leadership to create, prototype, implement and balance compelling systems for player progression and game difficulty.
- Implement all intended system designs utilizing scripting tools in Unreal, taking systems from concept to execution
- Work with the design team to implement and maintain various game systems, including loot balance and massive escalating difficulty curves
- Clearly document and communicate all work and ideas
- Work with design leadership to iterate on and polish the experience
- Provide reasonable time estimates, and communicate when adjustments are needed
REQUIRED:
- 5+ years of related experience
- Related credits on 2+ relevant, commercially-available titles
- Eagerness to iterate, iterate, and iterate on ideas
- A strong understanding of technical implementation techniques, primarily visual scripting (Blueprint or similar)
- A mind for balance and player psychology, always thinking about the user experience
- A passion for both design and technical implementation
- A thorough understanding of typical design pipelines
- Able to effectively collaborate with other departments
- Motivated and self-driven; complete tasks without major supervision
- Skilled problem solver
PLUSES:
- Experience with Unreal on shipped titles
- Credits on a shipped AAA action title
- Understanding of C++ or scripting languages
Our Benefits:
Healthcare that includes: complete medical, dental, and vision plans that cover you and your dependents.
Life insurance plus short and long-term disability.
Generous matching retirement contributions so you can live the good life after you retire.
Flexible Spending Accounts
Open Paid Time Off
Profit-Sharing
Relocation packages
Perks Upon Perks:
A world-beating, custom-made board gaming table
Payday Friday Off
Flex Days, where working from home is optionally allowed
Office movie lunches at Alamo Draft House (when we're not in a pandemic)
Access to your favorite snacks and beverages
MAME cabinet
GrubHub Account w/ meal credits
How We Work
Autonomy through collaboration:
We remove as many barriers as possible between you and productivity. We’ll ask you to be self-reliant and self-motivated, with the expectation that you talk frequently with your lead and teammates to keep everyone aligned.
Focused project management:
We don’t manage just to manage. We’re building a system and process that is helpful, but not intrusive. If someone is asking you for a status update, it’s probably because they are working with you on the thing they are asking about, or are planning to use it.
Small team environment:
Size is relative (especially in today’s dev world), but we’re all about direct interaction with teammates, experimenting with ideas, and less bureaucracy.
Our Values
High Performance:
Average will never be our target. We work hard to put the special sauce in each game we create, and this forms the core of our identity. It also pushes us to evolve. As we strive to be better together, we grow together.
Mutual Respect:
We respect the time and extraordinary efforts of our employees by offering generous PTO, profit-sharing, WFH days (even pre-pandemic), and an understanding of personal circumstances. Making great games often takes a lot; we aim to give a lot in return, by committing to share our success with our team.
Approachability:
Making something “fun” is inherently subjective, and can’t come without disagreement. We value being open, honest, and approachable. Respect breeds communication and good communication means good games. If you aren’t approachable, in good times and bad, Airship isn’t for you.
Help Us Build It
We are still trying to achieve our goals, and probably always will be. We’re looking for thoughtful, creative folks to help us move the goalpost.
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