[Hiring] Technical Game Designer @Gardens Interactive

Role Description

As a Technical Level Designer, you will create worlds and sandboxes filled with opportunities to play. You are a level designer by craft, with the technical skills to build gameplay features in Unreal Engine using Blueprints and/or C++.

• Create new world affordances: gameplay verbs, activities, challenges, and interactions that invite players to experiment and engage with their surroundings.
• Prototype, validate, iterate on, and deliver these features, then use them to build levels that encourage exploration, problem-solving, and memorable multiplayer moments.

A Day In The Life:

• Rapidly prototype and validate new gameplay verbs, activities, and environmental interactions in Unreal Engine for online multiplayer.
• Build and refine levels using the mechanics and tools you create alongside existing systems, hazards, and enemies.
• Playtest with the team to understand how players discover and use these affordances, then refine levels and features to encourage experimentation and memorable moments.

What You’ll Do:

• Own the design, implementation, debugging, polish, and maintenance of interactive world features and environmental gameplay toys that offer new choices, challenges, and benefits.
• Build levels from blockout through delivery, shaping flow, pacing, navigation, and readability across exploration, puzzles, traversal, and encounters.
• Create reusable, configurable gameplay components and tools that help designers build and iterate on levels efficiently.
• Rapidly prototype and playtest ideas to validate their potential, refine features, and manage scope and complexity.
• Collaborate across disciplines to align with design direction, integrate player abilities and creature encounters, and meet technical requirements.
• Partner with Engineering to resolve performance issues and ensure reliable multiplayer behavior.
• Keep implementations organized and document features and tools so the team can use, tune, and maintain them.

Qualifications

• Strong level design fundamentals in spatial composition, flow, pacing, and player guidance for open-world exploration and multiplayer play.
• At least one shipped game as a level designer on a multidisciplinary team.
• Proficiency in Unreal Engine Blueprints and/or C++, with the ability to independently prototype, implement, and debug gameplay features.
• Experience building levels and authoring collision and navigation in Unreal Engine.
• Strong playtesting and iteration habits, with an understanding of how design shapes player behavior, cooperation, and relationships.
• Clear communication, strong collaboration, and the judgment to work independently, recognize constraints, and seek support when needed.

Requirements

• Experience building reusable level design tools, modular gameplay kits, or procedural workflows in Unreal Engine.
• Experience designing systemic puzzles, physics-based interactions, or environmental features that support multiple solutions and emergent multiplayer play.
• Experience profiling and optimizing gameplay scripts and level content.

Benefits

• Competitive salaries and pay transparency.
• Stock options.
• Medical, dental, and vision coverage (100% for individuals, 90% for dependents).
• Life insurance, short-term and long-term disability, and additional benefits.
• 401(k) contributions (U.S.) / RRSP + DPSP contributions (Canada).
• Paid parental leave.
• A fully distributed remote studio across North American time zones.

Company Description

Gardens is a fully distributed game studio founded by creators behind titles including Journey, What Remains of Edith Finch, Blaseball, Dustforce, Ashen, Guild Wars 2, Baldur’s Gate 3, and more. We're developing our flagship project: a multiplayer fantasy adventure inspired by the friendships, discoveries, and unforgettable stories that emerge when people explore together.

• We believe the best ideas come from teams with diverse experiences, perspectives, backgrounds, and ways of thinking.
• Every Gardener helps shape not only what we build, but how we build it.
• Each of us arrives by a different path, bringing unique experiences, perspectives, and ways of seeing the world.