Principal Encounter Designer

About the role

The Principal Encounter Designer will join an exciting unannounced project in development at Scopely. The role can be based in-person at our Culver City hub, or remotely within the US or Canada.

Responsibilities

• Own the vision and execution for encounter design, delivering varied multiplayer gameplay experiences that fully leverage our sandbox and support multiple player-driven solutions.
• Define the principles that govern how player actions, enemy combatants, and environmental features combine across both hand-authored and procedurally generated content.
• Lead cross-disciplinary efforts with engineers, level designers, and technical artists to build procedural systems and workflows that generate distinctive, high-quality gameplay at scale.
• Collaborate with artists and level designers to establish a visual language that makes gameplay opportunities clear and inviting across a variety of worlds.
• Partner with systems designers and product management to shape how encounter difficulty, variety, and progression will encourage players to progress their abilities.

Requirements

• Significant experience designing encounters and gameplay experiences for third-person action, action-adventure games, and/or multiplayer games.
• Deep understanding of player agency, encounter readability, and designing for multiple approaches within a rich gameplay sandbox.
• Proven track record creating procedurally generated gameplay.
• Passion for systemic gameplay and emergent play, with strong instincts for how mechanics interact, compound, and surprise players.
• Strong thematic sense, with the ability to present gameplay in evocative, resonant ways.
• Hands-on implementation skills and enthusiasm for building things directly.
• A systemic, goal-driven design process grounded in playtesting and iteration.
• Clear communicator and thoughtful cross-disciplinary leader who can align partners around a high bar for quality.

Qualifications

• Bonus Points: Mobile design background, especially on mobile games with real-time action; familiarity with designing for cross-platform games; history of building gameplay to appeal to a broad audience; experience delivering emergent gameplay via physics; Unity game engine knowledge.

Benefits

For candidates in CA, CO, NJ, NY, and WA, the annual salary range is provided below. In addition to base pay, employees may be eligible for equity, bonuses, and a comprehensive benefits package, including healthcare benefits, retirement benefits, pet insurance, paid holidays, paid Scopely free days, and unlimited paid time off. Base pay offered may vary depending on job-related knowledge, skills, and experience.

Pay

CA, CO, NJ, NY, and WA Annual Salary Range $144,200—$215,000 USD

Schedule

Remote within the US or Canada, or in-person at our Culver City hub.

Skills

Mobile design background, especially on mobile games with real-time action; familiarity with designing for cross-platform games; history of building gameplay to appeal to a broad audience; experience delivering emergent gameplay via physics; Unity game engine knowledge.

Benefits

Comprehensive benefits package including healthcare benefits, retirement benefits, pet insurance, paid holidays, paid Scopely free days, and unlimited paid time off.