Game Design Director, Founders School - $400,000/year USD

What You Will Be Doing

• Evaluate and refine the concept of the business simulation game to ensure it authentically imparts entrepreneurial expertise through engaging gameplay.
• Assemble and manage a senior game development team, recruiting outstanding professionals and fostering a culture that delivers rapidly and iterates relentlessly.
• Collaborate with Founders School leadership, educators, and business practitioners to convert authentic business fundamentals into captivating gameplay structures.
• Integrate AI across the entire development pipeline to expedite design decisions, balance tuning, prototyping cycles, content production, and operational efficiency.
• Achieve concrete milestones, including a functional vertical slice within 12 months, validated teen playtesting sessions, and a robust architecture for additional simulation titles.

What You Won’t Be Doing

• Producing yet another conventional simulation game with predictable mechanics and negligible real-world relevance.
• Investing months drafting elaborate design documentation rather than releasing interactive prototypes.
• Operating within a large studio environment where creative direction is constrained by bureaucratic approval chains.
• Viewing AI as a supplementary productivity enhancement rather than a fundamental element of your creative methodology.
• Developing educational content that players endure instead of experiences they actively seek out.
• Developing a game that fails to transform players into better entrepreneurs through gameplay.

Basic Requirements

• Track record of shipping at least one commercially successful game that players authentically enjoyed, preferably within a team of 10 or fewer.
• Proven experience directing cross-functional game development from initial concept through market release.
• Extensive proficiency designing simulation, sandbox, systems-driven, strategy, or management games.
• Active daily application of generative AI tools to enhance game design and production workflows, with demonstrable recent examples of AI integration in your work.
• Enthusiasm for entrepreneurship and authentic conviction in the importance of creating profitable enterprises.
• Robust leadership, communication, and talent acquisition capabilities.
• Availability to work on-site in New York City.
• Authorization to work in the US without sponsorship.

Nice-to-have Requirements

• History of shipping sandbox, tycoon, builder, management, or simulation titles.
• Experience creating products tailored to audiences under 18.
• Experience embedding education or competency development within entertainment offerings.
• Experience collaborating with prominent brands, creators, or licensed intellectual property.
• Demonstrated success scaling a game team from initial concept through commercial launch.

About Founders School

Founders School is a four-year high school built for ambitious students who want to create, build, and solve meaningful problems. The program combines Alpha School's elite academics, real-world experience, and mentorship from world-class entrepreneurs around three commitments to every student: Build a million-dollar business. Identify problems in the world worth solving. Master AI before adults do. This is a place for people who'd rather build the thing than manage the thing. We're hiring the founding team that builds the dream high school for the most entrepreneurial and ambitious students in the country. Launching in NYC Fall 2026.

Pay and Schedule

The compensation level for this role is $200 USD/hour, which equates to $400,000 USD/year assuming 40 hours per week and 50 weeks per year. The payment period is weekly.