Lead Mission Designer – Gears Of War – The Coalition

The Coalition is a Microsoft first-party development studio located in Vancouver, Canada. We are the official home of the Gears of War franchise, and our objective is to forge the future of the IP and push the limits of Microsoft’s entertainment platforms and devices. Our team is comprised of deep creative and technical talent from across our industry and beyond, working cohesively to delight our fan base and pass expectations of what is possible.
As a studio, we lead from our values and work together to promote respect and inclusion, a growth mindset, G.R.I.T (Guts, Resourcefulness, Initiative & Tenacity), all while putting our team first! Join us and let’s go far together!
The Coalition is seeking an inspiring, highly motivated Mission Design Lead with a proven track record of delivering highly engaging, high-quality campaign experiences in games. In this position you will work with the Campaign Director and the Level Design Team to design the campaign experience, its pacing, its rewards, and the features that surround it. You will be expected to lead the Level Design team and set their priorities, partner with and guide other members of the Design Team, the Level Art Team, programmers, and other design disciplines to help make the design vision set out by design direction a reality.
Responsibilities

• Guide the level design team to iterate on designs to solve problems, improve the moment-to-moment experiences, and achieve the overall mission goals.
• Partner with the production team to develop roadmaps and estimates for the level and campaign design teams.
• Under the direction of the Campaign Director, lead the level design team through strong mentorship, training, and actionable feedback that motivates and inspires their work.
• Communicate with directors to highlight progress, understand obstacles, surface your team’s concerns, and identify risks and their potential solutions.
• Create and update documentation to explore design thoughts, pitch ideas, achieve alignment, and facilitate asynchronous team communication.
• Manage cross department communication and collaboration as it pertains to campaign missions: work closely across disciplines in managing the prioritization, implementation, and scope of the game’s single player campaign.
• Shepherd campaign mission and level development from paper through completion, guiding the process to meet timelines, iterate on feedback, and maintain focus on delivering high quality experiences.
• Work with the Lead Level Designer to define processes and best practices.
• Ensure functional and visual consistency across all campaign experiences throughout the game.
• Champion the game vision by driving initiatives and goals to make sure needs of the project are captured in the campaign missions and levels.

Qualifications
Required Qualifications:

• 3+ years of experience working on visual game editors, ideally Unreal Engine.
• 5+ years of experience having shipped at least one Action-Shooter or Action-Adventure console titles.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience with current scripting languages and level editors.
• Extensive experience with the level design fundamentals, constraints, and narrative.
• You have experience in leading development on a multi-person team.
• Experience working collaboratively in a cross-discipline development environment.

Soft Skills

• Awareness of accessibility and inclusivity with respect to both video games and workspace environments
• Interested in games and gaming
• Comfortable working with and communicating with other disciplines and teams
• Excellent communication, interpersonal and organizational skills
• A positive, collaborative team-centric mentality
• Strong desire to improve workflows and pipelines

Microsoft is an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to age, ancestry, color, family or medical care leave, gender identity or expression, genetic information, marital status, medical condition, national origin, physical or mental disability, political affiliation, protected veteran status, race, religion, sex (including pregnancy), sexual orientation, or any other characteristic protected by applicable laws, regulations and ordinances.
Benefits/perks listed below may vary depending on the nature of your employment with Microsoft and the country where you work.