Principal Game Designer

As a Principal Game Designer at Kabam, you will lead and represent the design discipline within the team. You will be responsible for translating business objectives into a clear, growth-oriented design vision, championing it across the studio or company. Collaborating with other discipline leads, you will develop the product roadmap, ensuring design functions effectively within a large multidisciplinary team. You will maintain design standards, empower the design team with clear objectives, effective collaboration, stakeholder buy-in, and mentorship, constantly optimizing design processes for efficiency and excellence.

Must Have

• Carry and communicate a growth-oriented design vision
• Collaborate with business owners, stakeholders from other disciplines, and the design team to develop a forward-looking and growth-oriented game design vision
• Represent design in product roadmap development
• Use intention-driven design to bridge the gap between player and product to advance the roadmap
• Ensure the design team is adequately managed
• Work with design managers to foster an environment of growth, mentorship, and coaching
• Directly support and coach design leaders
• Ensure design team's time is used efficiently to maximize output, create growth opportunities, and ensure sustainability
• Establish, maintain, and defend design standards
• BSc / BA or equivalent experience
• 8+ years in game development, including 4+ years in free-to-play mobile games
• 3+ years of leadership or management experience
• Strong communication, collaboration, and leadership skills
• Excellent understanding of technologies associated with game development and production (capabilities and limitations)
• Stays current with competing products, industry trends, and game design techniques

Good to Have

• Experience in large-scale AAA project development

Perks & Benefits

• Complementary health coverage (effective from day one, covers healthcare, dental, life insurance, disability, paramedical services like vision, mental health practitioners, massage, physiotherapy, acupuncture)
• DEIB benefits (gender affirmation care, fertility care, hormonal treatments, medications)
• Flexible spending account (flexible credit model for coverage levels, remaining can be allocated to group RRSP/TFSA, health spending account, and/or personal spending account)
• RRSP contribution program (available after 90 days)
• Paid leave and parental leave (paid parental leave, unlimited paid time off, paid volunteering leave, sick leave, holiday closures)
• Employee and family assistance program (crisis management, immediate mental health care, general emotional, mental, and financial well-being support)
• Telus Virtual Care (remote access to healthcare providers for prescription renewals)
• Learning and growth (regular lunch & learns, training allowance)
• Salary transparency (compensation range for position, clear career maps)
• Pleasant spaces (offices in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Vancouver, Montreal, Prince Edward Island, Seoul, with amenities like outdoor terraces)
• Giving back to the community (Agents of Change initiative for community support, events, and fundraisers)

At Kabam, we are constantly raising the bar for excellence in free-to-play mobile games. We hire for passion and diversity, to triumph through our collective skills. Our teams are made up of a fusion of personalities and interests united by a collaborative nature, a fun-focused culture, and a willingness to do everything to create excellent games. And that's where you come in...

As a Principal Game Designer, you are the leader and representative of the design discipline within the team. You are responsible for translating business objectives into a clear, growth-oriented design vision. You champion this vision at the studio or company level. You work with other discipline leads to develop the roadmap for future products and ensure that design functions within a large, effective multidisciplinary team. You maintain design standards and empower the design team through clear objectives, effective collaboration, stakeholder buy-in, and mentorship. You are the guardian of our design process; you constantly push for optimization and efficiency so that your team can do their best work.

This role is a full-time, on-site position, based 5 days a week in our Montreal studio.

In this role, you will:

• Key Responsibilities

• Carry and communicate a growth-oriented design vision:
• You collaborate with business owners, stakeholders from other disciplines, and the design team to develop a forward-looking and growth-oriented game design vision.
• You are responsible for ensuring the vision is clear and communicated at all levels of the hierarchy.
• You support this vision and ensure that the design adheres to it.
• You adjust the vision based on evolving business realities and clearly communicate these adjustments.

• Product Roadmap:
• You represent design in the development of the product roadmap.
• You use intention-driven design to bridge the gap between player and product to advance the roadmap.
• You advocate for the needs and priorities of the design team and ensure they receive appropriate support.
• You collaborate with stakeholders to ensure accuracy and build buy-in.

• Design Management:
• You are responsible for ensuring the design team is adequately managed.
• You work with design managers to foster an environment of growth, mentorship, and coaching.
• You build and help lead a culture of accountability, support, and cohesion.
• You ensure your designers feel in a safe environment that allows them to take risks, learn, and grow.
• You ensure succession plans are in place and critical vulnerabilities are addressed.

• Coaching Design Leaders:
• You directly support and coach design leaders, acting as a sounding board and actively cultivating their leadership and management qualities.
• You ensure your leaders understand business and product objectives, as well as the impact of their work on them.
• You establish, train, and mentor your direct successor(s).

• Maximize Design Team Efficiency:
• You are responsible for ensuring the design team's time is used efficiently to maximize output, create growth opportunities, and ensure sustainability.
• You collaborate with team leads to understand priorities and strengthen the team's ability to identify tasks with real impact.
• You ensure the team uses effective tools and processes and advocate for them when external support is needed.

• Establish and Maintain Design Standards:
• You set, maintain, and defend design standards.
• You ensure the design team and its initiatives use an intention-based approach to design features and content that meet product and player needs and expectations.
• You balance quality and speed of execution to create a design culture that is both detail-oriented and flexible.

To succeed in this role, your background must include the following:

• BSc / BA or equivalent experience.
• 8+ years in game development, including 4+ years in free-to-play mobile games.
• 3+ years of leadership or management experience.
• Strong communication, collaboration, and leadership skills.
• An excellent understanding of technologies associated with game development and production (capabilities and limitations).
• Stays current with competing products, industry trends, and game design techniques.
• Experience in large-scale AAA project development is a plus.

Our success is due to the hard work of our employees. We share our success with our employees through flexible benefits and reward programs, swag, snacks, and much more. Here's an overview of the support we provide to our employees:

• Complementary health coverage: No waiting! Complementary health coverage is effective from day one. Our benefits cover healthcare, dental care, life insurance, disability insurance, and complementary paramedical services such as vision care, mental health practitioners, massages, physiotherapy, acupuncture, and much more.
• DEIB (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging) benefits: DEIB is important to us and our employees. That's why our benefits include gender affirmation care, fertility care, and other hormonal treatments and medications.
• Flexible spending account: Our benefits are based on a flexible credit model, allowing you to choose the coverage levels that suit you and allocate the rest to a group RRSP/TFSA, a health spending account, and/or a personal spending account.
• RRSP contribution: Everyone retires someday, and we help our employees save for their future through a contribution program available after 90 days with us.
• Paid leave and parental leave: We offer paid parental leave, unlimited paid time off, paid volunteering leave, sick leave, and holiday closures.
• Employee and family assistance program: This program offers crisis management support, immediate mental health care, and general emotional, mental, and financial well-being support.
• Telus Virtual Care: We offer better access to remote healthcare providers for prescription renewals from the comfort of your home.
• Learning and growth: We encourage our employees to develop personally and professionally, and we support them in this by regularly organizing lunch & learns and providing a training allowance.
• Salary transparency: We communicate to employees the compensation range corresponding to their position and clear career maps to determine how they can evolve in their position or access a promotion.
• Pleasant spaces: Our offices are located in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Vancouver, Montreal, Prince Edward Island, and Seoul. Whether it's enjoying the summer on the outdoor terrace in downtown Vancouver, watching fireworks on Montreal's South Shore, or discovering local specialties in downtown Charlottetown, we want our employees to feel valued when they spend time in the office!
• Giving back to the community: Our "Agents of Change" initiative is how we support the communities we care about, and we organize several events and fundraisers each year, which the Agents of Change organize.

The typical salary scale indicated above is specific to candidates residing in Montreal. Your salary will be determined based on your knowledge, skills, and abilities, and you will have the opportunity to progress after hiring!

If you are interested in the position but your expectations do not quite match the established range, we still encourage you to apply! Adjustments could be considered based on your experience level.

Are you excited about this opportunity? Kabam is dedicated to developing its diverse and inclusive workforce. If your past experience does not perfectly match the listed requirements, we still encourage you to apply: you could be an excellent candidate for this position or for others.

We invite you to apply now and start the conversation with us. Together, we can create and support some of the best games ever made and entertain the whole world!

About Kabam

Kabam is a global leader in developing entertaining, immersive, and highly social multiplayer games, offering high-quality graphics, next-generation technologies, and revolutionary gameplay to players worldwide.

Kabam's games, including Marvel Contest of Champions, Shop Titans, and many others, have generated hundreds of millions of downloads and received multiple awards, including Apple's Editor's Choice and Google Play's Best Game of the Year.

Founded in 2006, Kabam has studios and offices in Vancouver, Montreal, and Charlottetown in Canada, Los Angeles and San Francisco in the United States, and Seoul, South Korea. Kabam is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Netmarble Games.

Kabam is an equal opportunity employer, committed to building a diverse and equitable workplace, as well as an inclusive environment for all current and potential employees. Hiring decisions are based on candidate qualifications and business needs, not on race, color, ancestry, place of origin, age, sex (including pregnancy), gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, political beliefs, religion, belief, marital or family status, medical record, genetic information, physical or mental disability, military or veteran status, prior criminal convictions, or any other protected category in accordance with federal, national or provincial and local laws and ordinances. Accommodations will be provided to candidates who request them to participate in all aspects of the selection process.