Senior Game Designer (9-month contract)

Blackbird Interactive is a creative-fueled, future-driven, independent game studio where the best talent in the industry can find long-term careers to help grow their abilities while working on a wide range of projects, which encompass world-class IPs as well as our own creations across multiple genres. Our studio operates as a remote-first workplace, offering flexible work arrangements. At this time, we are only able to hire candidates who are legally eligible to work in Canada and reside within Canada. Blackbird Interactive is looking for a Senior Game Designer to join our studio for an unannounced project. This project is a sci-fi, first-person action game built in Unreal 5. The game is heavily systems-driven, and uses a blend of hand-authored and procedural content, with deep immersion and an emphasis on narrative. As a Senior Game Designer, you will be responsible for developing both features and content, including brainstorming, documentation, implementation, and gameplay tuning/balancing. You should be comfortable working both in and out of the engine. You will enable and support the achievement of objectives assigned by the Design Designer and Game Director. You will communicate ideas, solicit feedback from key owners, and act on feedback given by others. Responsibilities Work both in and out of the engine to design, prototype and implement content, in collaboration with other disciplines Provide documentation and ongoing guidance to inform the implementation of features Understand, interpret and execute on direction, in alignment with project goals Resolve implementation issues or gameplay bugs Assist in testing new features in order to provide Design feedback Requirements 6-8 years of Game Design experience Experience prototyping via Blueprints in Unreal 5 Experience building gameplay features in Unreal Engine 5 Ability to think logically with a high level of attention to detail Knowledge of competitive products and a variety of gameplay genres Strong written communication skills and the ability to convey abstract concepts Pluses Experience with procedural generation systems Experience with highly-systemic gameplay Experience designing for multiplayer Interest in single-player games Art or Creative Writing skills Ability to understand and communicate in technical language