Lead Technical Game Designer, Games Innovation

Netflix is one of the world's leading entertainment services with 283 million paid memberships in over 190 countries enjoying TV series, films and games across a wide variety of genres and languages. Members can play, pause and resume watching as much as they want, anytime, anywhere, and can change their plans at any time.

The Role

ABOUT OUR TEAM:

The GenAI for Games team at Netflix aspires to transform game development and player experiences using generative AI. We are working to both increase the velocity of development and also unlock truly novel game experiences that will surprise, delight, and inspire players. We are focused on a creator-first vision and approach for AI, one that puts creative talent at the center, with AI being a catalyst and an accelerant. We work with multiple external partners on projects to deliver AI-enabled and AI-powered games to the Netflix service, and we also have an internal team exploring what is possible with this new technology.

ABOUT THE JOB:

As the Lead Technical Game Designer supporting GenAI for games, your role will be a dynamic blend of excellence in game design leadership and implementation. As a design leader, you will guide, influence, and uplevel approaches to game design and game design thinking primarily as a part of a small but mighty game innovation team but also will be asked to consult more broadly across the wider organization and with partners. The right candidate will also be expertly hands-on, and as part of the team's concrete game prototypes and projects, you will plan, build, iterate and improve systems and gameplay central to the player experience in our different game prototypes.

The position demands a blend of expert knowledge of game design and game systems and expertise in working with the Unity and Unreal game engines to make game design a reality. You will work in collaboration with gameplay engineers and data scientists.

Great ideas can come from anybody. As part of that design leadership, the ideal candidate will not only contribute to the pool of game concepts and designs, but help other team members hone and bring their ideas as game design challenges emerge.

Responsibilities extend from coding exceptional gameplay features to integrating various game elements such as characters, animations, VFX, and UI—either independently or in collaboration with artists. The ideal candidate will possess a comprehensive understanding of game development and demonstrate the autonomy needed to deliver a compelling user experience focused on player engagement. Additionally, they should be eager to invest in learning and exploring new, possibly unfamiliar, technologies to keep our games innovative and exciting.

Additionally, you will also be contributing to game design leadership, evaluation, and guidance in collaboration with the organization's leadership team to evaluate and advise with external game teams that we will be partnering with in this exciting space.

Responsibilities
Design:
Plan and lead design and development of new gameplay features.

Help figure out which games concepts, game designs or mechanics best showcase and guide the cool new technologies that are key to Netflix games

Demonstrate taste when making aesthetic design decisions for the game type with a strong bias towards member/player value.

Balance pacing and economics across complex multiplayer systems.

Visionary Thinking: Contribute to the long-term vision of our games, pushing the boundaries of what's possible in interactive entertainment.

Write high quality Design Documents.

Feedback and guidance for partner game teams?

Collaboration:
Contribute to the game design of all projects in the team by helping and collaborating with the other developers in the team.

Coordinate with cross functional of programming, creative direction, art, production and design that are internal to the team but also external to other teams.

Creative Initiative: Thrive in an environment that encourages stepping out of one's comfort zone to drive creative aspects of game experiments and development.??

Implementation:
Prototype Development: Direct hands-on contribution to building those products. Actively participate in the rapid prototyping of new game concepts. Ensure effective utilization of AI technologies to elevate gameplay.

Game Mechanics: Innovate and refine game mechanics through AI technologies and conventional game mechanics that make great games.

Requirements
7+ years of professional game design work experience, including at least 2 years as a senior lead designer.

Shipped at least 2 commercial games in a game design role with a team of 10+ people, ideally across a variety of game types and systems

Deep experience with system design.

Experience leading collaborative game design rigor and thinking on or across teams

Exceptional communication, cross discipline collaboration skills. Strong English communication skills, both verbal and writing game design documents.

Good knowledge and experience with Unity and Unreal5

Coding/scripting expertise, such as C#, Lua, Python, C++, etc

Experience with creating blueprints in Unreal and C# scripting in Unity

Passion for making video games, especially in a rapid, focused, smaller form vs multi-year investments

Excited by the usage of gen AI in games.

Nice To Have
Familiarity with the life-sim genre, especially stardew valley

Experience working with procedurally generated content

Social design experience with an emphasis on emergent multiplayer joy

Experience building games for early or unfinished platforms

Technical art experience for character and animation.

Location:
Los Gatos, CA /Los Angeles, CA - Preferred

Remote : United States or Canada will be considered
Traveling once a month to the Los Gatos office will be expected.

Our compensation structure consists solely of an annual salary; we do not have bonuses. You choose each year how much of your compensation you want in salary versus stock options. To determine your personal top of market compensation, we rely on market indicators and consider your specific job family, background, skills, and experience to determine your compensation in the market range. The range for this role is $90,000 - $600,000.

Netflix provides comprehensive benefits including Health Plans, Mental Health support, a 401(k) Retirement Plan with employer match, Stock Option Program, Disability Programs, Health Savings and Flexible Spending Accounts, Family-forming benefits, and Life and Serious Injury Benefits. We also offer paid leave of absence programs. Full-time hourly employees accrue 35 days annually for paid time off to be used for vacation, holidays, and sick paid time off. Full-time salaried employees are immediately entitled to flexible time off. See more detail about our Benefitshere.

We are an equal-opportunity employer and celebrate diversity, recognizing that diversity of thought and background builds stronger teams. We approach diversity and inclusion seriously and thoughtfully. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, ancestry, national origin, caste, sex, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity or expression, age, disability, medical condition, pregnancy, genetic makeup, marital status, or military service.

Job is open for no less than 7 days and will be removed when the position is filled.