Role Overview
We’re looking for a Senior Designer to work on a Simulation Game. This is a highly hands-on role, with the majority of your time spent directly working on the build. In this role, you’ll own major features and systems, helping shape the player experience from early prototyping through to polished implementation, all while balancing creativity, clarity, and scalability, enabling fast iteration and clean, maintainable systems.
You’ll work closely with a small, multidisciplinary team to build imaginative and replayable simulation games that serve a distinct genre audience and connect with players.
This is a 12-month contract.
Key Responsibilities
1 - Own Core Systems and Features
You’ll be responsible for designing and driving key gameplay systems and features from concept through implementation. This is a hands-on role, so you must be familiar with Unreal Engine and comfortable prototyping, tuning, balancing, and iterating directly in the build while working closely with the team to bring ideas to life.
Success looks like:
- Rapid prototyping that validates ideas quickly and cheaply.
- Well-designed systems and features that are fun, readable, and scalable.
- Clear ownership of your features from concept through release.
- Strong moment-to-moment gameplay and long-term progression thinking.
- Design work focused on the things that deliver maximum value to players.
- Clear playtesting and feedback loops driving continuous improvement.
2 - Drive Playtesting and iteration
You’ll use playtesting, feedback, and observation to refine the game throughout development. You’ll be expected to identify what’s working, what isn’t, and where design changes will have the biggest impact, then iterate quickly and thoughtfully in collaboration with the wider team.
Success looks like:
- Regular playtesting that generates clear, actionable insights.
- Strong design judgement in identifying problems, opportunities, and priority fixes.
- Fast, thoughtful iteration from player behaviour, feedback, and hands-on review.
- Features and systems that improve meaningfully over time.
- Clear communication of findings, changes, and rationale across the team.
- A design process where feedback is actively used to improve player experience.
3 - Collaborate across Disciplines
You’ll work as a senior designer within a small, collaborative team. You’ll communicate intent clearly, keep work aligned across disciplines, and help ideas move smoothly from concept to in-build implementation.
Success looks like:
- Healthy collaboration across Design, Art, Engineering, and Production.
- Clear and useful design documentation, prototypes, and implementation notes.
- Constructive feedback that improves the quality of the game.
- Confidence and ownership in cross-discipline discussions.
- Surfacing design problems early and solving them collaboratively.
Requirements
- Proven experience as a Senior Designer or equivalent on shipped games, ideally in the simulation genre.
- Strong experience designing and owning gameplay systems, mechanics, progression, or feature sets from concept through implementation in Unreal Engine.
- Comfortable working hands-on in-engine, with a practical understanding of how to prototype, tune, and iterate quickly.
- Strong grasp of systemic design, player motivation, balance, and long-term engagement.
- Excellent collaboration and communication skills across design, art, engineering, and production.
- Pragmatic approach to design, focusing on what moves the game forward and creates the best player experience.
- Experience using playtesting, feedback, and data to refine features and improve outcomes.
- Passion for simulation games and a drive to turn strong design into player delight.
Our benefits include a 2-week company summer break and a 2-week winter break to rest and recharge, in addition to your normal holiday allowance.
