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Technical Designer – Star Wars

At Zynga, we make games that amaze people and innovate to create brand new worlds. We take pride in making titles that reach large audiences and create long-lasting communities. We design and build free-to-play games, with jaw-dropping visuals and super-approachable gameplay. For the past five years NaturalMotion has been listed as Best Place to Work in the UK games industry by gamesindustry.biz.

Job purpose

We are looking for a Technical Designer to join us in creating Star Wars: Hunters ™, a hero and squad based arena shooter for Nintendo Switch and mobile that puts the player in a unique part of the Star Wars universe. The game brings players together for thrilling, team-based, multiplayer battles featuring a diverse array of new Star Wars characters, authentic locations, exciting game modes, and evolving stories.

Key roles & responsibilities:

Work on everything from aiming and movement, to gameplay HUD, Hunter abilities and combat mechanics.

Work with the gameplay cluster to build performant and fun gameplay systems, solve interesting technical questions, and bring best editor practices to the team.

Bridge design and engineering disciplines to ensure designers have the tools they need to bring the game world to life.

Experienced scripter who can take the tools that the editor provides and make amazing things with them. While not an engineer, you can speak their language and interface seamlessly with them to achieve results together.

Analytical approach to practical problem solving that makes you an asset to everyone on the design team.

Keen proponent of prototyping, and designing through constant playtest and iteration.

Contribute to the design of the game with your creativity, market knowledge, and design experience. With your collaborative working style, you will become a key design contributor and vision holder in the team.

Excellent communicator, who will clearly and concisely communicate your designs to team members, cluster leadership, and other relevant key partners through well-prepared documentation and engaging presentations.

Develop gameplay systems and features that deliver amazing experiences for our players, whilst improving retention, increasing monetization, driving social connection, and motivating players to progress.

Observe and analyse user testing and analytics data to recommend design solutions and improve or fix features. You will help take the game to worldwide launch and continue to develop the game during the life of the product as a service.

Design and deliver features post-launch with a clear understanding of impact on our key performance indicators, working closely with the team to effectively push features into content releases.

Required Experience & Skills:

Technical design experience on a UE4 project.

Deeply familiar with scripting languages, both graphical (UE4 Blueprints) and non (Lua, Java, etc.).

Able to collaborate and communicate well with engineers to introduce new editor functionality.

General knowledge of all parts of game design from systems to combat to level.

You’ve worked on shooters and/or on games with a heavy combat focus; and you’ve maybe launched at least one shooter.

You strive to create outstanding games and have the experience and energy to deliver fully developed features.

You have a strong attention to detail and understand the importance of balanced mechanics and holistic system design.

You write clear design specifications that are plain English, well structured and communicate your designs to the entire team.

You know how to prototype new features using a range of approaches as needed. You’re great with spreadsheets and modeling.

You have hands-on experience with the the design of a live game.

What we Offer:

Work in a studio that has complete P&L ownership of games

Competitive salary and discretionary annual bonus scheme

Private medical care and healthcare cash plan

Life insurance and critical illness insurance

Catered breakfast and lunch + a well stocked pantry

Work in a family-oriented, collaborative team that invests in your development and growth on-the-job

A diverse team of friendly, fun and supportive co-workers

Flexible working hours & crunch-free working culture

Generous parental leave

Zynga Employee Resource Groups, e.g. Women at Zynga, zParents, zPride

Frequent employee events including Summer/Christmas parties and weekly Happy Hour

25 days holiday, plus Christmas shutdown

Casual dress every day

Annual season ticket loan and cycle to work scheme

We are an equal opportunity employer and we are committed to building a diverse and talented workforce. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, sex, religion, colour, national origin, gender, gender identity, 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 to join us!

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

We are committed to providing reasonable accommodations to qualified individuals with physical or mental disabilities in order to participate in the job application or interview process, to perform essential job functions, and to receive other benefits and privileges of employment. Please contact us at AccommodationRequest@zynga.com to request an accommodation associated with your application for an open position.