[Hiring] Principal Systems Designer @Escape Velocity Entertainment Inc

Role Description

We are building the live-service meta for an upcoming game, and three of its most important systems do not yet have a principal design owner:

• The events that give the game a weekly heartbeat
• The social structures that make progression something players do together rather than alone
• The onboarding that has to teach both

This role owns the first two outright and is the design partner on the third. This is a design, maintain, and iterate role. Our event architecture, LiveOps operating model, and community structures are about to be defined. You would be the person driving those and designing them, alongside the other Designers, PM, and UX team.

This is a fully remote, principal-level individual contributor role on the Meta & Live Service team, reporting to the Design Director, Meta & Live Service.

What we will do together:

• Events and LiveOps design systems
  • Design events: a growing set of reusable, configurable formats that scale to meet our audience needs.
  • Design events end to end: entry conditions, currencies, consumables, reward pacing, and how events feed and are fed by the wider meta rather than sitting beside it.
  • Assist in defining the configuration surfaces and tooling requirements that make running an event a config job rather than an engineering job.
  • Help set the standard for how events are specced, instrumented, reviewed, iterated after they run, and retired.
• Social and community systems
  • Design various community and social systems that will help curate a strong community that grows together.
  • Partner with the various teams to see how each feature can be added to a social layer.
  • Design the end-to-end social funnel experience.
• Onboarding partnership
  • Partner with the FTUE pod and designer to sequence meta systems into onboarding.
  • Define nudge, notification, and re-entry logic, including the return path for lapsed players.
  • Help define the telemetry that tells us whether onboarding taught what it was supposed to teach.

Qualifications

• 8+ years in game design, including 4+ years designing for and operating a live-service title after launch.
• Demonstrated ownership of event systems, social systems, or both, on a title you supported live, not only specced.
• Fluency in progression and economy design.
• A track record of designing systems that scale through templates and configuration rather than through bespoke content per beat.
• Comfort influencing across Production, Engineering, UX, Narrative, and Product without formal authority.
• Genuine use of telemetry and player feedback to iterate on live systems.
• Excellent written and verbal communication.

Nice to have

• Tools and configuration design experience: you have specced the editor, not only used it.
• You have run a live game through a rough stretch and can talk specifically about what you changed and what you would do differently.

Benefits

• A generous PTO allowance
• Summer and Winter holidays studio closure (separate to PTO allowance)
• Private Medical & Dental Healthcare
• Private Mental Health scheme
• A generous annual Health & Wellbeing allowance
• Discretionary Studio Bonus
• Top range tech for your home set up
• Other benefits based on your region

How to apply:

Click apply and complete an application along with a Resume / CV. If we would like to move forward with your application, a member of the Recruiting Team will reach out to you and guide you through our process.

Escape Velocity is proud to be an equal opportunity employer. We are committed to hiring, promoting, and compensating employees based on their qualifications and demonstrated ability to perform job responsibilities.

Applications will be considered regardless of age, disability, gender identity, sexual orientation, religion, belief, race, or any other protected category.