Sr. Game Designer - The Sims

Welcome to Maxis, home to tinkerers, craftspeople, & storytellers. Our drive is to inspire everyone to make a better world through creative play. As the developer of The Sims, we create games and experiences for millions of people around the world and are always looking for new ways to inspire our players. Maxis is a place where you can do what you love and help others grow while doing it; a place where your unique voice can be heard and seen. We put creativity and inclusivity at the core of our work and don't settle for seeing the world only as it is, but strive to build a world as it could be.

Location (hybrid): Redwood City, Vancouver.

This role will report to the Executive Producer.

Responsibilities

1. Ability to successfully champion game design direction on the project on an ongoing basis, inspiring internal and external teams through progressive and innovative game design.
2. Collaborate with leadership to define design direction and craft clear design briefs, documentation, mockups, and presentations. Support the product vision as set by the Creative and Product Director.
3. Possess a deep understanding of new trends driving player expectations including the latest in life simulation, adventure games, cozy games, and the gaming industry in general. You have sensitivity to mass-market appeal and the ability to improve accordingly.
4. Partner with consumer insights, brand, data analytics, and commercial to break down and understand underlying player motivations while driving solutions to problems.
5. Proactively communicate progress, project opportunities and risks, and resolution of problems with the ability to set guidelines for internal and external partners and stakeholders.
6. Work directly with design teams, production, quality assurance, artists, and engineering to bring feasibility and appropriate scoping to your design briefs.
7. Interface daily with development teams including attending scrum meetings, milestone planning, triage, status meetings, etc.
8. Ensure a high quality product is developed for our players and community; be accountable for quality targets as well as the results.
9. Establish design-related engagement processes: Ensure all workflows are clearly defined and processes are well documented in partnership with production.
10. Motivate and inspire development team to meet goals and deliverables, while maintaining positive team morale and collaborative team behavior.
11. Welcome feedback and criticism and enjoy working in a cross-functional, iterative environment.
12. Strong ability to align and drive deliverables.
13. Participate in regular playtests and coordinate play sessions with development team members.
14. Must be willing and able to travel within Asia quarterly.

Qualifications

1. 3+ years of experience in game design and leading feature design or game teams and defining game design.
2. Experience designing, launching, monitoring, and evolving a live service title.
3. Broad and in-depth knowledge of game design including the ability to develop core game pillars, core game loops, detailed feature design and narrative design.
4. Experience inspiring an organization or team through influence and passion despite reporting lines.
5. Ability to break down complex problems into consumable and actionable pieces for implementation.
6. Ability to conceptualize, create, and implement game concepts using tools to communicate your ideas.
7. Excellent knowledge of production life cycle, processes, and project planning.
8. Experience in a Scrum / Agile and waterfall software development environment.
9. Experience with Jira/Jaas, Perforce, and other project management tools.
10. Shipped at least 1 AAA title in large (100+ person) game teams on PC/Mac/Console/Mobile platforms, ideally on multiple platforms.
11. Shipped at least 1 Live Service game and have experience with incident management, change management and release planning.
12. Must be willing to work flexible/later hours with partners in different time zones on a regular basis.
13. Proven success speaking publicly with confidence.

Bonus

1. Experience working with simulation games.
2. Experience working with outsourcing and external partners.
3. Love of Sims games.