Our Apex Legends team is looking for an experienced Technical Designer for Live Game Balance who will help create a balanced, fun and rock-solid environment for players of all types. We’re imagining someone who is creative, technical and deeply in touch with the needs of our community. We are looking for designers who are obsessed with weapons and abilities, understands innately the thin line that separates an overpowered gun from a useless one, and strives to make skills that are fun to both use and be used upon. The ideal candidate will be in tune with the latest competitive trends in the Apex Legends Global Series, and understand how to keep the game in balance for both esports competitors and casual players.
What’s it like to be a Technical Designer at Respawn?
Day to Day -
Our Live Game Balance Designers’ tasks include interacting with our player base, crunching mountains of data on matchups and effectiveness, diagnosing the root cause of tricky bugs, and implementing tweaks that make for a more fun and balanced game for all. Your analysis and implementation skills will be put to the test figuring out how best to change a game already played by millions. Some specific opportunities in this role include a focus on direct communication with players, advocating for changes and fixes on their behalf, and being able to cater to the needs of both hardened esports veterans and brand new FPS players alike while maintaining the creative vision of the game.
Feel -
Our studio puts a big emphasis on fun gameplay. We want responsive, immersive gameplay that just feels right. Every detail matters - whether it’s the way a player experiences traversing across a cliffside, the arc a projectile traces in the air before hitting the intended target, or how independent abilities come together in a delightful package to sell an immersive fantasy to players, it’s all crafted with purpose. All disciplines in game development are accountable to the gameplay a player experiences - and our designers are key in ensuring the best feel possible.
Collaboration -
Our Live Game Balance design team plays a central role in development. You will collaborate with other designers and disciplines such as code, vfx, and art. The work of our Live Game Balance designers has an impact on others, and they anticipate and communicate any design changes or scoping efforts that may affect schedules and workloads.
Values -
Our designers are aligned on their values. They share their inspiration, knowledge, and passion with the others in their department. They aspire to treat everything they work on as a personal masterpiece. They play the game and are encouraged to speak up if they see anything that is not up to our standards. They play other studios’ games and stay up to date with trends, while also striving to invent something new. They put their time and passion into what will have the biggest payoff for players. Our leads also make a lot of effort to ensure that our designers work on aspects they are excited about.
What do we look for in Technical Designer for Live Game Balance candidates?
Empathy for the Players -
Our Live Game Balance Designers seek to nurture and develop the relationship between our players and the dev team. We'd like to see examples where you took the initiative to improve the experience for players on a shipped game - how you found out what problems they faced, decided on what features would best make their lives better, and helped drive those features directly to players' hands.
Strong Problem Solving Skills -
A shipped game with millions of daily players presents challenges of immense sizes. We'd love for you to share stories of how you were able to diagnose tricky bugs and issues from incomplete data, the steps you took to solve the problems with the limited resources you had on hand, and the systems you put in place to make sure that the same problem would never trouble players again.
Design Sensibilities and Insight -
Our designers value having discussions with each other to better understand the intentions and level of success in their designs. We’d love for you to share why you made the decisions you’ve made in your own designs - what worked well, what you would change in hindsight, and what you learned. We also value your ability to analyze and break down, from a designer’s perspective, the aspects that work well or don’t work well in games you’ve played and why.
You’ve Made Stuff You Are Proud Of -
Whether it’s professional or personal work, we’d like to see examples in your portfolio that you developed from concept to finish. We like to see portfolios that showcase strong game design skills - sensibility, gameplay, technical skills, documents, etc. If your portfolio includes work that you developed as part of a team, we’d like to know the specifics of what you contributed versus what was handled by others.
Passion -
We look for game designers who are highly passionate. Our team is constantly sharing inspiration and working to raise the quality bar. No one is phoning it in here – our team loves what they do and it shows in their work.
Potential Over Experience –
We value talent over years of experience. Experience counts, but potential is important too. We look for motivated people with a strong sense of design and quality.
Teamplayer –
The ability to accept feedback and critiques will help you tailor your work towards what’s best for the game. We look for designers who demonstrate openness to team members’ ideas, incorporating suggestions to tailor your work towards what’s best for the game. Making games is a group effort and you will work closely with other accomplished departments that are experts in what they do. Teamwork is very important to our success.
Ideally, you also will have...
- 5+ years professional experience as a designer for games, ideally as a scripter working on weapons and abilities.
- Fluency in one or more scripting or programming languages.
- Experience in communicating to players in an official capacity.
- Strong problem solving skills.
- A cool head and the ability to work under time pressure and limited resources.
- Deep player expertise in one or more game genres.
If this opportunity sounds like a great fit for you, please submit your resume and portfolio and we will get back to you once you have been reviewed.
