Lead Level Designer

Giant Skull is an independent game studio on a mission to craft unforgettable single-player, gameplay-driven action-adventures in rich, immersive worlds. We are highly collaborative and value empowering autonomy; each individual at Giant Skull has the opportunity to feel their impact across the game, studio, and team. If you’re ready to join a studio where every voice shapes the adventure, we’d love to create something extraordinary together.

The Role:
As our Lead Level Designer, you will hold the vision for levels across the game and set the quality bar for level design. We’re looking for someone who can hold the vision for all levels across the game while delivering quality at a detail level. You’ll prioritize impact for the player, and ensure levels are designed so that narrative, gameplay mechanics, puzzles, and dynamic traversal blend into unforgettable, immersive experiences. This role involves leading from both a craft and team perspective as well as rolling up sleeves to build levels hands-on.

Impact and Ownership
Craft Leadership

• Working closely with the Design Director, you will help define the vision and direction for levels in the game.
• You will set and uphold the quality bar for level design, collaborating across disciplines to push for excellence while balancing scope and constraints.
• You will clearly communicate and reinforce level goals and intended player experience through vision documents, feedback, and presentations.
• You will conduct regular level reviews and critiques to ensure spaces meet creative and technical standards, and provide constructive feedback for improvement.
• You will champion playtesting and feedback loops, using data and observation to refine flow, pacing, and player clarity.
• You will define and improve level design standards, pipelines, workflows, and best practices - organizing the levels and what goes into them using systems, documents, etc that help others understand the goals.

Team Leadership

• You will lead and mentor level designers, providing guidance, feedback, and coaching that empowers autonomy and growth.
• You will collaborate with production to plan actionable milestone deliverables and a realistic roadmap.
• You will drive level execution on schedule, maintaining focus and momentum, making timely decisions, and escalating when additional clarity or resources are needed.
• As part of the game development leadership team, you will cultivate highly collaborative teamwork across design and between disciplines.
• You will foster a positive culture rooted in engagement, open discourse, and trust, and champion a candid feedback culture across disciplines.
• You will model positive leadership; maintaining quality focus and a delivery mindset with integrity, empathy, and composure even in high-stakes or ambiguous situations.

Hands On Level Design

• You will own and build levels, from pitch and blockout through final polish.
• You will design layouts, puzzles, traversal spaces, and environmental storytelling that align with core gameplay loops, narrative, and worldbuilding.
• You will collaborate closely with environment artists to create visually compelling, gameplay-driven spaces that enhance the player experience.
• You will contribute to worldbuilding by shaping how spaces connect to lore, traversal systems, and player-driven storytelling.
• You’ll work closely with gameplay and content design leads to ensure levels mutually support design elements such as combat and encounters.
• You will author documentation that clearly communicates level goals, structure, and intended player experience.

Qualifications

• You have extensive experience, ideally 10+ years, designing high quality levels for 3rd person action-adventure games, including ownership of major spaces from concept to polish on multiple shipped titles.
• You have experience leading and mentoring level designers, including setting direction, giving feedback, and supporting their growth.
• You have a deep understanding of level design principles, pacing, layout, flow, and how to guide players intuitively through gameplay and story.
• You have strong engine proficiency, ideally including Unreal, and can work hands-on from blockout through polish.
• You can define a quality bar, communicate it clearly, and ensure delivery at quality standards while balancing scope and schedule.
• You have experience planning and tracking level work against milestones and coordinating dependencies across disciplines.
• You are team-focused and have excellent communication and collaboration skills. You prioritize doing what is best for the player experience and work in partnership with other disciplines such as art, narrative, gameplay design, and engineering.
• You are a proactive problem solver who takes initiative to drive improvements and make things better.
• You value an open feedback culture and have the ability to give and receive constructive feedback.

_For this position, our base annual salary range is 160,000 - 225,000. Ranges may expand based on experience and location. Salary is just one aspect of our overall compensation package - we also offer opportunities for bonuses, retirement plan matching, and comprehensive benefits. We’re excited to share more about how we invest in our team during the interview process.

_At Giant Skull, we don’t just build games; we build careers, communities, and share unforgettable adventures. Join us in creating something remarkable together!