Job summary
The Pokémon GO team is seeking a Lead Game DesignerBuild compelling gameplay experiences that delight and engage playersEncourage and craft well-rounded designs to enhance outdoor and social connections
Job seniority: mid-to-senior level
Responsibilities
• Influence development strategies, future vision, and address sophisticated real-world, geospatial game design problems.• Provide creative leadership to the design team by encouraging functional, technical, and advocate for 'player first' quality designs that carry out what we value with an emphasis on simplicity.• Independently drives long term projects that scale across multiple teams and organizations.• Build and test new and existing features to ensure they meet design requirements and company objectives and key results.• Supervise design work across major feature investments, leading creative excellence across to deliver substantial gameplay experiences.• Work with leads and managers to identify new pitches and implement workflow improvements.• Build flexible, modular designs that will support a multitude of gameplay features.• Ensure all design represents our game, resonates with our audience, and unifies the brand experience.• Crafts, maintains, and optimizes concise documentation, templates, specs throughout the development life cycle for feature and system designs.• Develop new processes across the team and ensure they are shared and understood by the design and cross-functional teams.• Maintain cohesive strategies and brand experiences across the studio with product, marketing, live operations, and beyond.• Build reputation equity with external brand partners.• Encourage designers to be innovative by keeping up with industry trends and thinking of creative ways we can enhance Niantic's emerging technology.• Review and leverage data to craft and adjust deep progression models with varied difficulty that gives value to a balanced economy.• Collaborate with cross-functional team members and stakeholders, including regular and reliable attendance and participation in meetings.
Requirements
• 8+ years of professional game design experience and released new innovative gameplay for live operation games, mobile, and/or AAA.• 3+ years of validated experience mentoring designers.• Bachelor's Degree in a related field or equivalent experience.• Strong ability to consult and lead downwards, upwards, and partner relationships for gameplay design.• Master of receiving and providing design direction and constructive feedback.• Experience working with original and brand IPs.• Expertise with game balance, spreadsheets, data, pacing, feature documentation, and monetizing virtual goods in a FTP model.• Possesses a comprehensive understanding of Game Metrics and Key Performance Indicators.• Deep brand and design knowledge for Pokémon GO and the general Pokémon franchise (Level 40 and up preferred).• Ability to work in a fast-paced hybrid environment and handle stress appropriately and/or ability to solve practical problems and be sufficiently adaptable to handle dynamic situations with little advance notice.• Experience working on cross-functional teams with ability to communicate effectively through written and verbal communications, including synchronous interactions with others.
Key Skills Needed
• Influence development strategies• Creative leadership• Supervision• Documentation• Workflow improvements• Brand management• Data analysis• Collaboration• Game design• Communication
