Head of Game Design

YOUR MISSION

• Lead the Game Design Department — Your Game Design Leads are your direct reports, and your impact runs through them. Hire and develop the people who set the direction, own the headcount plan and budget, and anticipate what the department needs next: skills, tooling, and where the gaps are.
• Shape the Design Vision — Set the long-term direction for game design at Twin Harbour. The philosophy you develop should be clear to the team, durable across the full portfolio, and concrete enough to influence real decisions. That includes understanding how design choices affect the game's ability to attract new players and keep long-term ones.
• Work Across the Studio — Partner with Heads of Product, Producers, and other department heads so design can actually deliver what each production needs. Sort out friction early, before it becomes someone else's problem.
• Own the Craft Standard — Define and enforce the design quality bar across all productions. Set the frameworks and review processes that give the franchise a coherent design identity.
• Build an Inspiring Culture of Trust — Create the conditions where designers feel safe raising problems, pushing back, and asking for help. Look at who gets heard, who gets developed, and who gets the stretch assignments.
• Make Feedback Real — Keep it timely and grounded in the work, not a box-ticking exercise. Stay close enough to both the team and the game to catch signals early, and use data and instinct together to act before they become bigger problems.
• Lead with Clarity — Clarity is how trust gets built and ownership becomes real. Set the tone across the department, make sure the franchise's direction is understood by the people executing it, and surface problems early.
• Drive AI Adoption — Actively find where AI tools can improve design workflows, prototyping, and iteration speed. Model the behavior. Bring the team with you.

YOUR BACKSTORY

• Deep, firsthand knowledge of strategy games, grand strategy, 4X, or adjacent, on PC or mobile, as a player and as a designer. You understand what keeps long-term strategy players engaged and coming back.
• 7+ years in game design, with several of those leading designers or teams as a Lead Game Designer, Design Director, or Head of Game Design. If you've had outsized impact in a slightly shorter time, we'd still like to hear from you.
• A track record of building and keeping strong design teams, including the harder conversations around performance, career redirection, and organizational change.
• You can set a quality bar, run reviews, and hold it across multiple concurrent productions, not just produce good work yourself.
• Hands-on experience with budgeting, headcount planning, and resource forecasting at a department level.
• Clear, trusted communicator with genuine AI affinity. Peers, reports, and leadership all get a straight answer from you. You're already using AI tools in your design practice and thinking about where they go next.