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Senior Technical Game Designer (Apex Legends)

Electronic Arts
Los Angeles California United States
3 years ago
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Apex Legends team is looking for an experienced Senior Technical Game Designer who will develop and implement deep and exciting gameplay systems. We're imaging someone with both the creative and technical skills to bring weapons, progression, abilities, and meta systems to life. You should have a strong understanding of basic engineering principles, and value fun and fairness.

What’s it like to be a Game Designer at Respawn?

Day to Day - Our game designers’ tasks include developing game design documents, prototyping, iterating, testing, and solving problems. You will use your scripting and engineering skills extensively. Some specific opportunities in this role include a focus on improving existing systems within Apex Legends, both creatively and technically, and generating new ideas for weapons, Legends, and the game's meta in general.

Creative Freedom - We believe that when developers have creative freedom and work together they will make extraordinary games that achieve the unexpected. Our designers are encouraged to share ideas, iterate for greatness, scope wisely, and deliver polished game designs they are proud of for players to enjoy. As a game designer you will have a direct hand in shaping the game and a voice when it comes to making the best game possible.

Ownership - Our teams are small and everyone has a lot of ownership over their work. Our game designers own their individual features from conceptualization to shipping. As part of a small team you will have the opportunity to shine here.

Feel - Our studio puts a big emphasis on fun gameplay. We want responsive, immersive gameplay that just feels right. Every detail matters - whether it’s the way a player experiences traversing across a cliffside, the way a weapon feels amazing to use, the way embodying a character can make a player feel powerful and smart, to the way an astonishing moment can leave a player breathless; it’s all crafted with purpose. All disciplines in game development are accountable to the gameplay a player experiences - and our game designers are key in ensuring the best feel possible.

Collaboration - Our game design team plays a central role in development. As a game designer you will collaborate with other designers and disciplines such as animation, code, vfx, and art. The work of our game designers has an impact on others, and they anticipate and communicate any design changes or scoping efforts that may affect schedules and workloads.

Values - Our game designers are aligned on their values. They share their inspiration, knowledge, and passion with the others in their department. They aspire to treat everything they work on as a personal masterpiece. They play the game and are encouraged to speak up if they see anything that is not up to our standards. They play other studios’ games and stay up to date with trends, while also striving to invent something new. They put their time and passion into what will have the biggest payoff for players. Our leads also make a lot of effort to ensure that our designers work on aspects they are excited about.

What do we look for in Game Designer candidates?

Design Sensibilities and Insight - Our designers value having discussions with each other to better understand the intentions and level of success in their designs. We’d love for you to share why you made the decisions you’ve made in your own designs - what worked well, what you would change in hindsight, and what you learned. We also value your ability to analyze and break down, from a designer’s perspective, the aspects that work well or don’t work well in games you’ve played and why.

You’ve Made Stuff You Are Proud Of - Whether it’s professional or personal work, we’d like to see gameplay in your portfolio that you developed from concept to finish. We like to see portfolios that showcase strong game design skills - sensibility, gameplay, technical skills, documents, etc. If your portfolio includes work that you developed as part of a team, we’d like to know the specifics of what you contributed versus what was handled by others.

Passion - We look for game designers who are highly passionate. Our team is constantly sharing inspiration and working to raise the quality bar. No one is phoning it in here – our team loves what they do and it shows in their work.

Potential Over Experience – We value talent over years of experience. Experience counts, but potential is important too. We look for motivated people with a strong sense of design and quality.

Teamplayer – The ability to accept feedback and critiques will help you tailor your work towards what’s best for the game. We look for designers who demonstrate openness to team members’ ideas, incorporating suggestions to tailor your work towards what’s best for the game. Making games is a group effort and you will work closely with other accomplished departments that are experts in what they do. Teamwork is very important to our success.

Ideally, you also will have...

3+ years professional experience as a technical designer for games or similar role.

Bachelor's degree or higher in Computer Science, Software Engineering or a related field.

Fluency in multiple scripting and programming languages.

Ability to polish gameplay moments to a AAA quality.

A strong sense of timing and taste, as well as cinematic flair.

Experience in rapid prototyping to test feasibility of concepts.

Deep player expertise in one or more game genres.

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