Lead Features Designer

Founded in 2010, Playdemic is a BAFTA Award winning developer and publisher of mobile games, focused on creating fun and engaging, free-to-play game services for iOS and Android, including the global smash hit, Golf Clash.

Our culture and values place great emphasis upon open communication, autonomy and empowerment. We believe in encouraging people to be the best they can be and giving them the tools to achieve their goals. Innovation and creative risk taking is encouraged, whilst maintaining developments meeting the needs of the business. Our flat and transparent approach to decision making creates a shared culture of success.

We are committed to constantly improving our working practices and collective knowledge through training and support.

Golf Clash has been entertaining millions of players for over 9 years, and we remain committed to delivering exciting new features and content to our fans for many more years to come. Following a comprehensive onboarding experience, this is a rare opportunity for a highly motivated Lead Features Designer to join the team and help shape the future of a globally successful game enjoyed by millions.

As a Lead Features Designer within the Golf Clash team at Playdemic, you will be responsible for leading the feature design team and driving the design of new features and systems, facilitating collaboration with Product, Production, Art, and other disciplines to take features from concept through to launch and iteration.

You will be expected to guide, support and review the work of designers within the feature design team, helping to maintain a high standard of design quality, communication and delivery. Once settled in the role, you will play a key role in shaping feature priorities and ensuring successful feature outcomes.

You will be expected to undertake all the outlined tasks to a high level of quality and to meet necessary timelines. To support these expectations, Playdemic will provide any mentoring and training required to perform your tasks.

 

Responsibilities

Day to Day:

• Collaboratively drive ideation of new features and systems with the product management team.

• Lead the design and development of features from concept through launch and iteration, ensuring they align with product goals and design direction.

• Define clear design objectives, player value and success criteria for features, using these to guide development and evaluate outcomes post-launch.

• Create and maintain clear, efficient and legible feature documentation.

• Guide feature development through implementation, collaborating closely with cross-disciplinary teams to ensure quality execution.

• Review and provide feedback on design output within the feature design team, helping to maintain high standards of design quality, communication and delivery.

• Support and mentor designers within the team, helping them to develop their skills and improve their work.

• Help prioritise feature development in collaboration with product management and production.

• Use player behaviour, feedback and data insights to evaluate feature performance, and to inform iteration, optimisation and design decisions.

• Help establish and maintain strong design practices across the feature team.

Key Skills

• A minimum of 5 years’ experience working in a Game Development studio.

• Experience working on live games with a proven track record of owning and delivering multiple features or systems within the constraints of a release schedule.

• Strong experience designing features and systems for mobile free-to-play live service games.

• Experience leading, mentoring or guiding other designers and helping to improve team output.

• Strong experience designing and balancing game systems and economies, supported by excellent Excel skills.

• Strong understanding of analytics, KPIs and success metrics, and how they can be used to support design decisions, evaluate feature performance and drive optimisation.

• Technical skills and knowledge of game development tools including Confluence and JIRA.

• Strong communication skills, with the ability to clearly articulate design goals, trade-offs and requirements across disciplines.

• Ability to review work, provide clear feedback, and maintain a high bar for design quality.

• Experience working collaboratively across Product, Production, Art and development disciplines to drive feature outcomes.

Bonus Skills

• Prior experience working on sports or competitive multiplayer titles.

• Experience using experimentation, analytics and player behaviour data to optimise feature performance post-launch.

• Educated to degree level in a game design related subject, or equivalent experience.