Design Manager

Squanch Games is a game development studio known for its interactive experiences. They are seeking a Design Manager to lead a multidisciplinary design team, ensuring alignment and productivity while fostering a culture of creativity and collaboration.

Responsibilities:

• Own the day-to-day of a mixed-discipline design team spanning systems, level, content and narrative design — setting priorities, unblocking work, and keeping everyone rowing in the same direction
• Report directly to our President/COO, acting as the connective tissue between the design team and studio leadership — translating creative vision into a design team growth and mentorship plan that unifies people & product
• Be a leader and coach who cares about people and how they work, interact and grow. Spots and supports people ready for more responsibility and those that need more support in their growth. Knows how to handle a spectrum of experience. Promotes a culture of creativity, quality, accountability and collaboration
• Work directly with studio leadership and other department heads to help manage the team. Are proactive in keeping the team aligned to the vision
• Empower the team to deliver quality through coaching, critique and support
• Be a lover of all things GAME DESIGN. Cares about the past, present, and future of game design across genres, systems, and mechanics. Draws inspiration and ideas from differing genres, games, styles and methods. Can spot quality design work and debate why it is (or is not) great
• Come up with, pitch and implement creative solutions to overcome problems you identify independently or with your peers. An amazing communicator who can provide structure in ambiguity
• Support on an individual contributor level when necessary to help a project reach its goals. We are a small team that takes pride in wearing multiple hats to help our games be successful

Requirements:

• Formerly held a title such as Lead Designer, Senior/Principal Designer, or Design Manager, with 1–2 shipped titles as a designer or design manager
• Working knowledge of tools across the design pipeline - Unreal Engine (Blueprints and/or other engine scripting languages, LUA, C# etc.), design/documentation tools, and project tracking software (Jira, Trello, Click-up, Notion etc. or similar)
• A designer with Lead experience, or a Senior/Principal designer who's ready to move into a leadership role
• Has a deep understanding of game design principals, pipelines, cross-discipline collaboration (design/art/production), and processes
• Comfortable managing a mixed-discipline team - systems, level, content and narrative designers alike - without needing to be the deepest expert in every discipline
• Strong ability to estimate tasks for planning purposes with production, by soliciting team members and/or doing a rough pass on their own
• Excellent communicator, equally comfortable briefing executive leadership and running a critique with the design team