Lead Level Designer

About the job

T-Minus Zero is a new, first-party, remote first studio formed by veteran game developers. Our mission is to build epic, immersive action games where players from around the world play together to form strong vibrant communities around our games. Our studio culture begins with implicit trust in everyone we hire. We are an open, friendly, mature, and highly collaborative environment that expertly balances quality of life with quality of work. We are looking for people who have a passion for making great player experiences. If you are looking for new opportunities check out all our open positions to see if there's a match for you.

T-Minus Zero is seeking a Lead Level Designer to join our team. Your initial impact on the project will be as a key contributor on the prototype for our brand-new AAA game & IP. As we move further into development, you will build our level design team and lead them. You will work closely with the Design Director, Environment Art team and Engineering team to help define the playable spaces and the pipeline for how we create them, ensuring we reach both a high play and visual quality bar that is performant on all platforms. You will also work closely with other members of the Design team to define the level metric standards for all playable spaces moving forward and make sure the spaces have proper markup for gameplay.

To be successful in this role, you will need to be both a guide as well as collaborator for fellow teammates across all disciplines. You will need to know what great looks like in terms of level design and be able to communicate that to your team. You should be comfortable communicating design goals, requirements, and feedback to other teammates to ensure success.

In addition, you will need to be able to assist in identifying top applicants, hire them, and get them onboarded to the team. This is a special opportunity with a very talented team. We look forward to seeing your application!

Key Responsibilities

• Hire and manage a team of talented level designers!
• Assign tasks, priorities, and provide feedback to your team on their work to ensure success.
• Provide performance reviews and career guidance for your team.
• Define the vision and be accountable for the game’s playable spaces that you and your team create.
• Develop easy to understand level design goals that support the creative direction of the game.
• Produce documentation and other supporting materials to communicate level design goals, requirements, and processes.
• Work in the Unreal Engine to create and implement fun, performant gameplay spaces utilizing the game’s play mechanics.
• Collaborate closely with engineers, animators, artists, sound designers and others to ensure a high-quality cohesive experience for players.
• Lead an iterative development cycle - oversee playtests to seek feedback and identify practical solutions to problems.

Basic Qualifications

• 8+ years of professional level design experience with at least one shipped AAA action or shooter title.
• 3+ years of professional experience in multiplayer game development.
• A portfolio demonstrating your best professional level design work.
• Prior experience as a lead level designer or similar leadership role where you managed and mentored at least 2 other designers.
• Expert knowledge in level design and the process required to make shippable playable content in AAA multiplayer games.
• Experience with rapid prototyping, both as an individual contributor and a lead.
• Experience prototyping gameplay on a shipped multiplayer AAA action or shooter title
• Excellent time management skills.
• Strong communication and leadership skills.

Preferred Qualifications

• Proficiency in Unreal Engine and its various tools and systems.
• Experience creating large sandbox play spaces.
• Ability to script in Blueprint or similar visual/text-based languages.
• Strong analytical and problem-solving skills, with the ability to make data-informed design decisions
• Strong passion for games and a deep understanding of various game genres.

Comp Range: $130,000 - $180,000

We are an equal opportunity employer that embraces diversity, equity and inclusion. All employment decisions are made without regard to race, color, national origin, ancestry, sex, gender, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, age, genetic information, religion, disability, medical condition, pregnancy, marital status, family status, veteran status, or any other protected status as required as by law.

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