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Design Director
- Montreal, QC, Canada
Full-time
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- Job type
- Full-time
- Closing date
- Posting language
- English
- Posted
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Design Director
Position Type: Location(s): Canada, Montreal, QC Date Posted: Job ID: R-124550
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Role Overview
We are looking for an experienced Design Director to join the Haven team. The Design Director will take the core pillars from the Creative Director and articulate them into balanced, scalable, and engaging systemic loops.
You will own the structural blueprint of the game - ensuring that the player fantasy, narrative context and creative pillars translate beautifully into moment-to-moment gameplay, short-term loops, and long-term progression tracks. Additionally, you will hire, lead and organize a design team, mentoring designers to ensure the game vision and direction is executed at a AAA standard.
Experience Required
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Design Director
Position Type: Location(s): Canada, Montreal, QC Date Posted: Job ID: R-124550
Apply Now
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Role Overview
We are looking for an experienced Design Director to join the Haven team. The Design Director will take the core pillars from the Creative Director and articulate them into balanced, scalable, and engaging systemic loops.
You will own the structural blueprint of the game - ensuring that the player fantasy, narrative context and creative pillars translate beautifully into moment-to-moment gameplay, short-term loops, and long-term progression tracks. Additionally, you will hire, lead and organize a design team, mentoring designers to ensure the game vision and direction is executed at a AAA standard.
- Reporting: The Design Director will report directly to the Creative Director for the project.
- Design Direction & Vision Articulation
- Translate the Vision: Partner closely with the Creative Director to deconstruct abstract creative themes into clear, rationalized gameplay pillars and meta-structures.
- Align Fantasy & Narrative: Construct a comprehensive gameplay vision that weaves the game’s thematic fantasy and narrative context directly into cohesive mechanical elements.
- Systemic Architecture: Apply an innovative yet analytical approach to build robust moment-to-moment gameplay, short-term hooks, and long-term retention loops that perfectly suit the game's direction.
- Establish Creative Constraints: Define clear direction, intent, and structural boundaries for the design team, giving them a focused framework to maximize their creative freedom and innovation.
- Design Review & Validation: Establish high quality bars; review and validate all design work produced by the team to ensure mechanic solidity, balance, and alignment with the core vision.
- Team Management & Studio Collaboration
- Manage & Mentor: Direct a team of game designers (Junior to Senior), conducting regular 1-on-1s, providing actionable performance feedback, and actively supporting their professional growth.
- Cultivate Design Standards: Maintain a structured, collaborative design environment that champions clear communication, objective analysis, and constructive criticism.
- Cross-Discipline Alignment: Act as the primary design ambassador for Engineering, UI/UX, Audio, and Live Operations, ensuring cross-functional clarity regarding design intent and vision.
Experience Required
- AAA Track Record: Minimum of 6+ years of experience in game design, with at least one shipped major AAA multiplayer title in a Senior, Lead, or Principal role.
- Pre-Production & Lifecycle Experience: Proven experience defining core loops during early conception and preparing complex systems for live-service stability.
- People Management: Minimum of 2+ years of direct experience managing, mentoring, and developing game designers.
- Innovative & Analytical Thinker: A unique blend of out-of-the-box creative thinking and sharp analytical skills, capable of inventing fresh ideas and grounding them into logical, quantitative rules.
- Vision Communication: Exceptional verbal and written communication skills; an expert ability to articulate, argument, and pitch design concepts clearly to both the development team and studio leadership.
- Live-Service & Multiplayer Literacy: Deep experience navigating multiplayer architectural constraints, including matchmaking logic, playlist structures, anti-cheat considerations, and progression balancing within a live-service context (broadly applicable beyond traditional PvP frameworks).
- Early Prototyping Comfort: Ability to work lightly within a game editor to quickly validate and prototype design ideas during early conception phases.
- Working knowledge of Unreal Engine.
- A strong passion for gameplay innovation and a keen understanding of evolving trends in the global gaming market.
Please refer to our Candidate Privacy Notice for more information about what personal information we collect, how we use it, who we share it with, and your data protection rights.
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More about this job
Responsibilities
Translate the Creative Director’s vision into cohesive gameplay pillars, systemic structures, and engaging short- and long-term gameplay loops, while reviewing design work for quality, balance, and alignment. Hire, lead, and mentor the design team, establish clear design standards, and coordinate design intent across engineering, UI/UX, audio, and live operations.
Requirements
Requires at least six years of game design experience, including a shipped major AAA multiplayer title in a senior, lead, or principal role, plus at least two years of direct people-management experience. Candidates should have experience defining early core loops and preparing systems for live service, strong analytical and communication skills, multiplayer design knowledge, and the ability to prototype; Unreal Engine knowledge is preferred.
Skills
- Game Design
- Design Direction
- Gameplay Systems
- Creative Vision
- Narrative Integration
- Systemic Architecture
- Game Balancing
- Team Leadership
- Mentoring
- Performance Management
- Cross-Functional Collaboration
- Live-Service Design
- Multiplayer Design
- Prototyping
- Unreal Engine
- Communication
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Categories
- Creative & Media
- Art & Design
- Management & Leadership
- Software
Keywords
- AAA Games
- Game Design
- Design Direction
- Creative Direction
- Gameplay Pillars
- Gameplay Loops
- Systemic Architecture
- Game Mechanics
- Game Balancing
- Player Fantasy
- Narrative Design
- Progression Systems
- Live-Service Games
- Multiplayer Games
- Matchmaking
- Playlist Structures
- Anti-Cheat
- Pre-Production
- Prototyping
- Game Editor
- Unreal Engine
- Team Management
- Mentoring
- Performance Feedback
- Cross-Functional Collaboration
- Engineering
- UI/UX
- Audio
- Live Operations