Principal Game Designer (Creative Lead)

Rovio is part of the SEGA family and world famous for our flagship IP Angry Birds - want to know more about Rovio as an employer? Click here.

As a Principal Designer, you will lead Angry Birds Friends game’s creative vision, strategy and execution. You collaborate closely with Game Lead to challenge each other and raise your thinking of the game to new heights. You also support each other with defining a shared common goal and language to drive a unified vision. You will be leading and mentoring team members who craft the game’s experiences based on the vision.

You will bring new ideas and depth to the game with strong engaging and emotional elements across the game. You actively follow and market and understand competition in order to keep the game desirable, marketable and competitive for years. For that, you need to understand market insights, user research and analytics to ensure that the game’s creative side aids in meeting the game’s business targets.

This role cannot be fully remote, but we offer a relocation package to Helsinki or Barcelona.

You’ll have impact and fun at work by doing:

• Collaborate closely with Game Lead in all areas of game vision, strategy and roadmap in order to share common goals and language to drive a unified game vision.
• Own all the areas of the game’s creative vision, strategy and execution. This includes, e.g., concept, gameplay, UX, narrative, art and functionality.
• Help Game Lead to ensure the game is successful in the market and that player needs and business goals are being met.
• Lead and mentor all creative team members to ensure smart innovation, design excellence, overall alignment and direction.
• Are an expert in all aspects related to the game design as well as in creative problem solving and decision making. You participate actively in the game design and transform ideas into detailed designs with the team.
• Work closely with Game leadership to guide priorities and goals to ensure the development process reaches the needs of each development phase. You participate in the decision-making and oversee the necessary adjustments to ensure the team delivers what is expected in a way that will guard team health and player experience.
• Communicate to the creative team their objectives, vision and strategy. You offer visibility on the progress and development of the game and other crafts across the production to ensure clarity, visibility and alignment between different stakeholders.
• Analyse creative workload versus production capacity, and work with the senior production team to establish a work schedule and priorities for the creative team that is in keeping with the project goals and timeline.
• Work closely with PM, UA and PMM to ensure that the promise of creative strategy is reaching a wide audience effectively and that it is aligned with what the game delivers for the players. Support Product Manager and work on A/B tests related to game features, events, etc. to enable further growth.
• Follow actively markets and competition in order to quickly identify opportunities as well as to ensure the competitiveness, differentiation, and longevity of the game.

Experience and skills we are looking for:

• Several years of experience and proven success designing casual mobile F2P puzzle games in a Principal/Lead Designer role.
• Experience in owning the game’s vision and strategy and leading its execution from a concept phase to the global launch.
• Experience working on all the aspects of game design, e.g., systems, economy, narrative, levels, UX, and social.
• Understanding how design can support business success.
• Expert in connecting player and business needs. E.g., understanding player motivations, engagement, retention, social aspects and monetization.
• Strong skills to ideate, concept, prototype and validate a game and its features.
• Strong understanding of game design principles, e.g., game balancing, economy, progression systems and LiveOps.
• Strong skills to create competitor and market insights in order to see, e.g., opportunities, trends or weak signals.
• Strong skills to create, communicate and showcase new concepts and ideas.
• Ability to use a data-driven approach to find challenges/opportunities or to validate hypotheses.

At Rovio, we are also committed to providing reasonable accommodations for qualified individuals with disabilities or special needs in our working environment and job application procedures. We are committed to continuously improving workplace accessibility. If you have any questions before applying, please write to us at recruitment@rovio.com.