Mid to Senior Game Designer

We are Sports Interactive 🎮 

The gaming studio behind: ⚽ Football Manager

Founded in 1994, Sports Interactive became a wholly owned subsidiary of SEGA Europe in 2006. Based at the Here East technology hub in Stratford, East London, the SI team continues to expand as we bring our titles to an ever-growing audience across an increasing variety of platforms. 

To support our growth, we welcome the opportunity to connect with passionate people with the drive to match our ambitions and initiative to realise your individual potential.

Working Model: Hybrid (2/3 days per week) | Remote by exception

Location: Here East, Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, London, E15 2GW

Position Overview

Sports Interactive are looking for a talented Senior Game Designer to join the studio and work on the Football Manager franchise.

As a Senior Game Designer, you will be responsible for taking ownership of and driving the latest feature designs for Football Manager projects. Typical activities will include features definition, systems, and interfaces; aiming to feed our football simulation with more quality, depth and authenticity.

You will join an ambitious and passionate team who care deeply about delivering an outstanding Football Manager experience for our players. As a Senior member of the team, you will exemplify design excellence and delivery.

The ideal candidate will be a pro-active, self-motivated, and creative individual, with outstanding communication skills, solid design methodology, and the ability to drive features from inception to delivery at pace within a cross-disciplinary team.

Key Responsibilities

• Own and design engaging, complex gameplay features and systems from concept to release to deliver the highest quality Football Manager experience

• Define feature goals, player experience, constraints, and success criteria in collaboration with design and creative leadership

• Collaborate closely with UI/UX and Narrative designers on feature proposals and definition

• Produce and maintain high quality documentation and champion upcoming design features with UI/UX Design, Engineering, QA and Communications

• Pro-actively identify design risks and opportunities, proposing solutions and improvements

• Contribute to the wider game vision, proposing key ideas and game improvements to creative leadership to help shape the feature roadmap

• Assist in developing qualitative design methodologies such as test plans, prototyping, user-testing, analytics and iterative development

• Implement content, tune data and help balance systems directly in Unity when appropriate

• Mentor and support less experienced designers through feedback, reviews and knowledge sharing

Knowledge, Skills and Experience

• Systems-driven game designer who has an appreciation for complexity, depth, and simulation-heavy topics

• Autonomous and dynamic, able to be a key driver for gameplay quality in a dispersed team

• Excellent written and verbal communication skills for effective collaboration with game designers, UX/UI designers, software engineers, artists, animators and producers

• Passionate about both football and video game development

• Well versed with Game and UX design best practices for PC

• Exceptional attention to detail and a methodical approach to design

• Good knowledge of Football Manager

• Experienced of a full development cycle releasing at least one commercial simulation game, or a project with systems-heavy focus

• Experience within a ‘Senior’ role including mentorship and/or people management would be beneficial

• Experience working with modern game development tools and engines such as Unity or similar

• Expert-level with Excel and/or other data-driven tools

• Proficient with Miro, PowerPoint and the Atlassian suit (Confluence, Jira, Jira Product Discovery)

• Computer science, game design or other relevant educational background would be beneficial

Benefits of Working at Sports Interactive:

• Subsidised mental health, therapy and coaching sessions are available. 😌

• Contributory Pension Scheme (up to 7% of annual salary). 🏦

• Free onsite evening bar in the Sports Interactive London HQ. 🍹

• A well-stocked breakfast bar with cereals, fruits, teas, and coffees. 🥣

• Regular events in collaboration with our partnered football clubs. 🏟️

• Access to our on-site physical and massage therapist services. 💆

• Multiple clubs and societies to join e.g., book club and art workshops. 🫶

• Free access to games released under the SEGA Europe umbrella. 🕹️

• A range of Gym Membership options through our Benefits partners. 🏋️

• Access to Private Healthcare and Dental Plans. 🦷

• Travel Insurance for yourself and your family. ✈️

• A personalized football shirt upon passing probation. 👕

What is it like to work here?

We approach everything with passion, whether that is making our mark on the gaming and football industries or doing our bit for the world around us. We want to share that outlook with everyone who shows up to work here each day.

For us, talent wins games, but teamwork wins titles. Collaboration is the key to constantly topping our best. We believe everyone matters, no matter which part of the business you are in, so we encourage and support our people in driving your own growth and realising your full potential. But, more than anything else, we are a team. A team with a down-to-earth dynamic, that has a lot of fun doing what we do.

And whether that’s technical tweaks or fine-tuning our creative process, everything is geared at producing the best game possible for our players. To do that, we need to be tenacious and move quickly, and not be afraid of switching things up. It is these principles that have enabled us to produce a game that has defined year after year, and that will continue to push us for many more to come.

Our flexible working culture gives you the opportunity to optimise your workload, with in-office, hybrid, and remote working options dependent on role. So, if you want a work/life balance, we are behind you. Because while we live to create extraordinary games, we know that is not all you have got going on. You can trust that we always keep things in perspective, fostering an environment where work can be more than just a job.

We’re also a London Living Wage employer, boast one of the lowest staff turnover rates in the industry and are proud to have won the ‘Best Places to Work’ award by Gamesindustry.biz in large company category in 2023.

We are proud to be an equal opportunities employer and encourage applications from any relevant candidate irrespective of sex, race, disability, age, sexual orientation, gender reassignment, marriage or civil partnership, pregnancy or maternity, religion, or belief.

SI is proudly a Disability Confident Committed employer, and we are dedicated to ensuring our recruitment process is inclusive and accessible. Our studio has disabled access and facilities but please ensure you advise us if you require any other reasonable adjustments to be made to support you during the recruitment process.

Our Values:

• Keep collaborating: Teamwork wins titles - Here, ideas belong to everyone, whatever department you’re part of. Collaboration lets us score more as a team than we could individually.

• Be flexible: We think fast and adapt faster. The football and entertainment worlds never stand still, so we keep progressing and switching things up to stay ahead.

• Stay Tenacious: We don’t overlook the details. Everything we do is about producing the best game possible, in other words, never settle.

• Show Ambition: Let your drive lead the way - Your individual outlook can give everyone the edge. Make the studio’s purpose personal and let your drive lead the way.

• Bring the Passion: Have fun doing your thing - Don’t be fooled, what we do is not a game. Making our players’ passion come to life is our passion.

• Consider the Bigger Picture: Keep things in perspective - We want our impact to be a positive one. From built-in work/life balance to initiatives covering the most important topics of today, we have what matters in focus.