Senior Level Designer (4-Month Contract)

Job description

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. **PLEASE NOTE: 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 an experienced **Senior Level Designer** to help build and deliver high-quality gameplay spaces for an action RPG focused on fast-paced combat, character progression, exploration, and replayability. This role focuses on designing levels, encounters, and environments that create satisfying combat opportunities, reward exploration, and support a wide variety of player builds and abilities. You'll work closely with systems design, combat design, art, narrative, audio, and engineering to create spaces that complement the game's core combat systems while providing strong pacing, readability, and a sense of discovery. The role involves collaborating with leadership to align content with the overall creative vision while owning levels end-to-end, from initial layout and blockout through implementation, iteration, and polish. As a senior designer, you'll be expected to independently solve complex level design problems, provide strong design judgment, and help establish a high quality bar for playable content across the game. ### Responsibilities - Collaborate with combat, systems, narrative, art, engineering, audio, and production to create levels that support the established creative vision and core gameplay pillars - Own levels end-to-end, including layouts, blockouts, combat spaces, encounters, traversal, exploration, pacing, and player flow - Design engaging combat spaces that support varied enemies, character builds, abilities, positioning, and different approaches to combat - Create rewarding exploration through optional paths, secrets, environmental storytelling, and meaningful rewards while maintaining clear navigation and progression - Script and implement gameplay events, encounters, objectives, triggers, and environmental interactions directly in engine - Test, debug, and iterate on levels using playtest feedback to improve combat flow, difficulty, pacing, readability, and replayability ### Requirements - A minimum of 8 years of game development experience, with significant experience designing and implementing levels for action, RPG, or combat focused games - Experience shipping multiple titles, including at least one in a senior or equivalent level design role - Proven ability to independently own complex levels from initial concept and blockout through implementation, iteration, and final polish - Strong understanding of action RPG level design, including combat spaces, encounter pacing, exploration, progression, player guidance, and replayability - Strong hands-on experience with level editing, gameplay scripting, and in-engine implementation, with the ability to prototype, debug, and iterate quickly - Strong design judgment, communication, and collaboration skills, with the ability to balance gameplay quality, creative goals, technical constraints, and production realities ### Pluses - Passion for action RPGs centered on combat, character builds, loot, progression, and exploration - Experience designing levels for an isometric or elevated gameplay camera, with an understanding of its impact on combat readability, navigation, and composition - Experience creating replayable content that supports different character builds, abilities, difficulty levels, or repeated playthroughs - Appreciation for systemic combat and how level geometry, enemy composition, hazards, and interactive elements combine to create varied encounters - Experience designing dungeons, interconnected environments, procedural or modular level content, or other repeatable gameplay spaces - Strong instincts for environmental storytelling, gameplay readability, polish, and identifying opportunities to improve the player experience through iteration