Lead Designer, Innovation - Unannounced Game

About the position At Blizzard, we craft genre defining games and legendary worlds for all to share. Through unparalleled creativity and storytelling, we create immersive universes and iconic characters that are beloved across platforms, borders, backgrounds, and generations – only made possible by building a work environment that nurtures the artistry of game development and unleashes the aspirations of our people. We are seeking a highly creative and experienced Lead Game Designer to spearhead gameplay and content innovations for an upcoming AAA open-world shooter. In this role, you will collaborate closely with engineering, art, narrative, and production teams to deliver groundbreaking player experiences that push and explore the boundaries of features within the game. You stay current with emerging trends across both indie and AAA development and are energized by pushing into unexplored creative territory. You embrace innovation at the edge of what’s possible balanced with a pragmatic leadership mindset that turns ambitious ideas into experiences players can truly enjoy. This role is anticipated to be a hybrid work position, with some work onsite and some work from home. The home studio for this role is Irvine, CA.

Responsibilities

• Support and execute the strategic direction for key feature innovations, partnering with discipline leaders.
• Utilize your own technical implementation skills and game design expertise to bring your ideas to life.
• Identify, evaluate, and prioritize innovation opportunities based on industry trends, player needs, and project goals.
• Lead cross‑disciplinary teams to guide innovative features from early concept through production delivery.
• Serve as a people leader, mentoring, coaching, and developing designers while fostering a culture of creative excellence and accountability.
• Balance creative ambition with production realities, helping teams scope, iterate, and deliver high‑impact experiences.
• Communicate vision clearly through strong documentation, presentations, and cross-team alignment.

Requirements

• 15 years of professional experience in game design or a related discipline.
• 4+ years of experience leading, mentoring, and growing design teams in a leadership capacity.
• Extensive experience working on shipped AAA combat focused titles.
• Proven experience leading cross‑disciplinary feature development from concept through implementation.
• Proven experience working with the Unreal engine and using Blueprint to create prototypes / game content.
• Deep expertise in game‑design fundamentals, systems thinking, and player‑centric innovation.
• Skill with hands-on development of features and systems, including independently prototyping content and tuning systems.
• Strong ability to translate abstract ideas into clear, actionable designs that teams can execute against.
• Experience shaping and evangelizing design vision across large, multidisciplinary teams.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills, including the ability to target communications to the audience, whether that is junior designers, cross-disciplinary teams, or project leadership.

Nice-to-haves

• Strong interest in how emerging technology can unlock new workflows and efficient development practices.
• Well‑developed documentation practices used to align, inspire, and guide teams, including developing templates and setting the standard for team documentation.
• Broad and active engagement with a wide variety of game genres and platforms.

Benefits

• Medical, dental, vision, health savings account or health reimbursement account, healthcare spending accounts, dependent care spending accounts, life and AD&D insurance, disability insurance
• 401(k) with Company match, tuition reimbursement, charitable donation matching
• Paid holidays and vacation, paid sick time, floating holidays, compassion and bereavement leaves, parental leave
• Mental health & wellbeing programs, fitness programs, free and discounted games, and a variety of other voluntary benefit programs like supplemental life & disability, legal service, ID protection, rental insurance, and others
• If the Company requires that you move geographic locations for the job, then you may also be eligible for relocation assistance.

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