Senior Level DesignerJob Category: Software Engineering: Creative
Location: Vancouver, CA
Job ID: 751215-38275
Division: Interactive Entertainment Business
Our team is looking for a talented Senior Level Designer with experience in developing top-quality games. Duties include creating interesting and dynamic levels & mechanics, being an evangelist for Level Design and participating in level design meetings. The ideal candidate will have proven experience in level design, outstanding people and leadership skills, and have the ability to create a vision for levels and help drive them to completion.
Candidate Responsibilities:
- Conceptualize, build, script, and tune levels for the game.
- Working with the Design Lead, develop and manage the overall beat chart by which the front-to-back game experience is crafted.
- Mentor other designers, and lead the process by which the levels will be executed.
- Help finalize the game mechanics by whiteboxing and prototyping environments in which those mechanics will be used.
- Own the overall gameplay execution in those levels, and be able to work collaboratively with art, animation, audio, engineering, and design to create memorable experiences.
-Drive design by taking the initiative to bring parties together to execute on the vision for the levels.
- Ability to generate stories about the second-to-second gameplay, and logically decompose the construction (under the hood) of these stories using the tools.
- Previous experience making single-player levels and multiplayer levels.
- Previous experience leading other designers, providing them with metrics and rules, and inspiring them to greatness.
- Some artistic background, formal or otherwise, 2D or 3D, is a big plus.
- Strong verbal and written communication skills.
Candidate Requirements:
- Must have 6-8+ years of experience in video games. 1-3+ years experience in a leadership capacity is a huge plus.
- Extensive experience with 3D level design tools (UnrealEd, Kismet, Maya, Max, Hammer, Radiant or similar 3D editor).
- Previous experience and interest with a gameplay scripting language or high level programming language.
- Thorough knowledge of the game development process.
- Works well under deadlines.
Technical DirectorJob Category: Software Engineering: Development
Location: Vancouver, CA
Job ID: 751354-38276
Division: Interactive Entertainment Business
Microsoft Game Studios is looking for a dynamic and experienced technical leader who has an undying desire to create the world’s greatest games. Our new development studio in Vancouver is looking for a Technical Director that will help shape and deliver the future of interactive entertainment. As a member of the studio leadership team, you will use your extensive experience to collaborate with the industry's best developers and join a team dedicated to excellence and teamwork.
RESPONSIBILITIES:
As Technical Director of the Vancouver studio, you will:
- Be a member of the studio’s leadership team, partnering with the Executive Producer, Director of Operations, Creative Director and Art Director to handle the daily management of the project.
- Grow the studio by helping drive the recruiting and hiring process of engineers.
- Be the advocate and champion of engineers by mentoring leads, creating succession plans, identifying high performers and growing the engineering community as a whole.
- Define and own the technical roadmap ensuring the studio is poised to execute on the current project as well as positioned for future expansion and growth.
- Be the director of solutions, architecture, and best practices.
- Accountable for the overall technical design. Ensuring the technical direction chosen lead to a successful product ship – executing on the game vision, achieving quality goals, and hitting performance targets.
- Be forward looking in terms of technical risk identification and mitigation planning and have the ability to get hands on when needed in order to solve key technical problems in all areas (graphics, performance, multiplayer, etc.).
- Be responsible for defining and maintaining the coding standard as well as the adherence to important API design standards and usage policy of internal and external libraries.
QUALIFICATIONS/SKILLS:
- Must have 10+ years of development experience in video games as well as 5+ years experience in a leadership capacity.
- Must have shipped at least one AAA console title as Technical Director (from concept to release).
- Domain expert in at least one technical area and competent in most. Strong coding skills and ability to solve technical problems across multiple areas of game development.
- Experience with multithreaded software development.
- Experience with middleware engines and/or tools (Unreal, Havok, Wwise, etc.).
-Technical vision and the ability to turn that vision into reality.
- Strong communication and mentoring skills.
Art DirectorJob Category: Software Engineering: Creative
Location: Vancouver, CA
Job ID: 751083-38038
Division: Interactive Entertainment Business
Microsoft Game Studios is looking for a dynamic and experienced Art Director who has an undying desire to create the world’s greatest games. Our new development studio in Vancouver is looking for an Art Director that will help shape and deliver the future of interactive entertainment. As a member of the studio leadership team, you will use your extensive experience to collaborate with the industry's best developers and join a team dedicated to excellence and teamwork.
We are looking for an Art Director who has working knowledge across all major Artistic disciplines including Environments, Characters, Concepts, Animation, FX and UI. You should also be comfortable working with a broad spectrum of styles, from photo-realistic to stylized.
Candidate Responsibilities:
- Responsible for setting and pushing the visual direction of the game.
- Translate written and verbal direction into visual solutions, creating a style guide to ensure uniformity across the Art team.
- Grow the studio by taking an active role in hiring new Artists, including reviewing resumes/portfolios and conducting formalized interviews.
- You will also work closely with the CG Supervisor to ensure the proper pipelines, tools, and processes are in place to deliver the desired look and feel of the game(s).
- Mentor and guide a staff of artists from Junior to Lead level. This includes leadership training and guidance, artistic skill development and continuously pushing the overall team's quality bar.
- Meet regularly with key stakeholders to communicate art needs and issues, the plan for implementation.
- Act as an intermediary between Artistic disciplines, ensuring effective communication and knowledge transfer across the entire Art team.
- Work closely with Production to ensure tasks are tracked accurately.
- Overlook quality and delivery of outsourced assets as well as help define outsourcing process.
Candidate Requirements:
- Must have 8-10+ years of experience in video games, film/television or equivalent. Must also have 2-4+ years experience in a leadership capacity.
- A degree or diploma in Painting, Illustration or Animation from an accredited institution.
- Must have a passion for mentoring and sharing art methodologies with fellow artists.
- Must possess a solid knowledge of the production lifecycle, from concept to completion.
- Experience as a production artist across multiple disciplines (Concept, Environments, Lighting etc.) is a big plus.
- Deep understanding of colour, tone, lighting, composition and visual storytelling.
- Proven ability to work in a variety of art styles.
- Ability to operate both at the hands on and strategic level.
- Experience with outsourcing.
- Experience with outsourcing.
- Works well with deadlines.
Submission Guidelines:
Please include a link to your portfolio that best demonstrates your range in design. For CD/DVD demo reels, please send them to:
Senior Technical Game De...Job Category: Software Engineering: Creative
Location: Vancouver, CA
Job ID: 751095-38055
Division: Interactive Entertainment Business
We have a great opportunity for a Senior Technical Game Designer working with the Unreal Engine. This opportunity is best suited for trained designers with a software engineering background and Kismet experience. The role will be to both lead and mentor other technical designers as well as serve as the “go to guy” for complex scripting tasks. Our ideal candidate will be a committed gamer with a passion for delivering new experiences to the core consumer. Applicants must also be able to remain positive and work effectively and efficiently in a team-oriented environment.
RESPONSIBILITIES:
- Work closely with the design team to set technical standards for game scripting.
- Drive through vision and creation best of breed event scripting.
-Mentor less experienced designers in Kismet and how to approach working with it.
- Be the "go to" person for complex implementations of design content, and for shepherding projects that require heavy programmer/designer interaction.
- Be the primary link between scripting and the code base.
REQUIREMENTS:
- Must have 4-6+ years of experience in video games.
- Through knowledge of game development process.
- A passion for games and the technical tools for delivering them.
- A technical background in scripting or coding. A past history of filling a technical role on quality shipped products.
- Expert experience with Kismet and level design using Unreal.
- In depth knowledge of unreal script.
- C++ training is desirable for creation of scriptable items outside kismet or unreal script.
