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. Read on to see how you can join our team and dream big.

As a Designer on The Sims, you'll work with a team of enthusiastic industry craftspeople from all walks of life. You will use your passion and knowledge to design player-first experiences that surprise, delight, and invite millions of Simmers around the world to Play with Life.

You will report into a studio Development Director.

Responsibilities

Be an advocate, represent the Design team.
Be an active member of the development team using inclusive collaborative frameworks with diverse teams to decide on goals and establish the stories players want to tell within a given release
Collect and organize feedback from brainstorming workshops to inform design goals, visions, and solutions, and provide feedback to other designers.
Design, tune and bug fix entire systems within Maxis' proprietary tools
Help establish best practices for the team.
Become a mentor to more junior members of the team.
Have a depth of knowledge across a majority of systems, being able to oversee entire pillars for a pack and train/support the team on its features.
Determine gameplay experience goals for designs, and tune features to meet those goals.
Improve designs based on playtests, game metrics, team input and community feedback.
Be resourceful and solve problems using the tools and time/scope available to create unique and fun experiences for players.
Collaborate with all team disciplines, including artists, animators, modelers, engineers and producers to get support from the team and guide a project from initial design to final production.
Become an expert on the game and our community, drawing from our large, varied player base and our past games to make and defend intelligent design choices going forward.
Have an eye for improving process and efficiency to make life easier for the Design team.
Help establish best practices for the team.

Qualifications

At least 2 years of game design experience on a video game development team.
Excellent creative, analytical and organization skills with an ability to write detailed design documentation throughout a project life cycle.
Progressive thinking while remaining energetic and motivated to overcome challenges with practical solutions.
Interest in pushing boundaries telling inclusive human stories through systems and thematic storytelling
Champion a design and get the team excited to work on it.
Experience prioritizing multiple tasks.
Experience using a variety of scripting solutions to implement, tune and bug fix features.
Become proficient in multiple proprietary development tools.
Sense of ownership and responsibility.
Design and implementation experience with game features which focus on open-ended player creativity.
Effective at working both autonomously and in groups of different profiles.
Knowledge of and enthusiasm for gaming: playing, deconstructing and creating.
Experience with simulation games.

Desirable Skills

Shipped a AAA HD title.
Bachelor's Degree or equivalent.
Comfortable with MS suite (Word, Excel, PowerPoint), Google Docs, Miro, Visio, JIRA, and online collaboration suites such as Confluence.

About EA We exist to inspire the world to play. Through innovative technology and immersive storytelling, we deliver new ways of experiencing worlds of interactive entertainment for our millions of players worldwide. Our strength lies in the diversity of our people, combining creativity, innovation and passion. We fully champion inclusive culture, and provide opportunities for growing, learning, and leading that allows for the most impactful and rewarding work of our teams’ careers. We put our people first, and we make sure they’re taken care of both in and out of the office. As we reflect on our learnings and successes from remote work, we aim to provide dynamic, collaborative and flexible work environments for our teams. Our employees connect through our Employee Resource Groups, which are actively involved in driving business decisions every step of the way. But our support doesn’t end at the workplace—we also encourage a balanced lifestyle with paid time off and new parent leave, free video games, fitness reimbursement and more. Our goal is to provide a safe, respectful and inspiring workplace for all of our employees. Through our diversity, equity, inclusion and social responsibility programs, we’re doing the work to give everyone the space to be their full selves while giving back to our community. We’re looking for problem-solvers, game-changers, innovators, dreamers, doers—people that are ready to move the needle and build on our success. As our industry accelerates, we aren’t just keeping up—we’re staying ahead of the game. Electronic Arts is an equal opportunity employer. All employment decisions are made without regard to race, color, national origin, ancestry, sex, gender, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, age, genetic information, religion, disability, medical condition, pregnancy, marital status, family status, veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by law. Electronic Arts also makes workplace accommodations for qualified individuals with disabilities as required by applicable law.

Game Designer II - The Sims 4