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Technical Game Designer - Minecraft
2 years ago
Mojang Studios is best known as the creators of Minecraft, but we’re also on a mission – to build a better world through the power of play.
Why play? Well, play is at the heart of everything we do. It’s the blocky backbone of our games, the core of our development philosophy, and even the origin of our name. From the relentless experimentation of our endlessly inspiring community to the classrooms where Minecraft has become an essential teaching tool, play is the bedrock of our existence.
The Minecraft gameplay team needs someone to help us provide our fantastic community of over 100 million players with more fun and an even better game, for many more years to come. This is not an ordinary design or developer-role. In this role, your responsibility will be to help drive the creative vision for the game, and gameplay feature design. Be the voice for the players and help add as much player delight for years to come.
The Minecraft Gameplay team is responsible for the gameplay of vanilla Minecraft, all platforms and all players. Our feature development process is very iterative, and we have a close collaboration with our huge and diverse community. We work on an already amazing game, and it is of very high importance that every single feature fit into Minecraft.
As a Technical Game Designer, you will work closely together with the rest of the Minecraft team on developing new features in Minecraft and on maintaining existing gameplay. You will be part of the full process of gameplay development - from brainstorming and design to implementation, polishing and bug fixing. This is a great opportunity to mix two amazing things: programming and game design! Some of your responsibilities will be:
- Execute on the creative vision for the assigned project
- Create design ideas and concepts related to new and existing features, together with your team
- Prototype new feature ideas through Java code
- Take ownership of a feature and its design quality from ideation to release
- Be able to articulate rationales, feedback and design choices, as related to the consistency within the project and across the studio as a whole
Requirements
- Experience with Java- or C++ development (having experience in both is awesome and a big bonus!)
- Experience with, and an understanding of what makes Minecraft what it is.
- Experience working with game design in the games industry.
- Strong knowledge of game design and understanding of contextualized design
- Desire to be part of a creative and highly collaborative team and ability to take feedback and direction.
- Excellent communication skills, both verbally and in written form, to support your vision
Overall, we think that you have the ability to drive an idea from concept to completed feature in a collaborative environment. You are a team player, who understands the importance of communication when working in a small team with a lot of stakeholders. Finally, you are humble, but yet really good at what you do.
Mojang Studios
Mojang Studios is a Microsoft-owned game developer. The company was founded in Stockholm, Sweden and has offices around the world, including Stockholm, Redmond, Tokyo, London, and Shanghai. We’re always working on new and exciting ways to expand the Minecraft universe.
Our community is global and incredibly diverse. We keep this in mind when developing anything, as we want people to feel included in Minecraft. And in recruiting, our goal is to make Mojang Studios as diverse as our community.
We got started as a tiny indie developer, and part of our culture still reflects that heritage. But we’re also proud to belong to Xbox Game Studios, which creates unique opportunities to grow and develop.
To help us achieve amazing things, we have built an equally amazing studio space. Situated right on the water by Söder Mälarstrand, it’s filled to the brim with all the tools, toys and caffeine required to create world-class entertainment.
But in the end, it’s the people of Mojang Studios that make this place truly special. When you join, you’ll find yourself in the company of incredibly bright, warm, and creative individuals – all united and working toward a single goal. Come help us reach it!
Important note on resumes
Please make sure that all the information in your resume is accurate because we will conduct a thorough background check. Any discrepancies will lower your chances of getting to the next interview stage and we’d hate to miss out on an awesome candidate! Double check that any gap years are reflected in your history, and that your education and work experience are completely accurate. Good luck!