Who We Are

Founded in 2023, 2K Sports Lab is the newest stand alone studio at 2K looking to push game development boundaries to bring 2K's next groundbreaking sports franchise to life. We're building a world-class team at our new Vancouver, BC location where our goal is to deliver an exceptional experience through bold ideas, technical excellence, and creative collaboration. We're seeking passionate and driven professionals across all areas of game development to help shape this ambitious vision. If you’re interested in tackling unique challenges and think you have what it takes to level up our team, we encourage you to apply!

What We Need

Our studio is looking for a Senior Gameplay Designer who has a high quality bar, a passion for replicating authentic sports behaviors and experience in systems design.

In this role, you will work with a production partner to creatively lead AI Engineers, Animation Engineers, and Animators to set the vision for and implement authentic sports behaviors to build highly polished world- class gameplay for what will be the next massive sports franchise in our industry!

The Gameplay Designer will work with the Gameplay Design Director to set a vision for a significant gameplay area and partner with production and tech peers to lead a team to deliver against that vision.

What You’ll Do

Be the ‘Product Owner’ for your gameplay area

Acquire an intimate knowledge of our target player and our product goals

Acquire an intimate knowledge of the competitive landscape

Work with the ‘Gameplay Design Director’ to define the vision for your gameplay area

Partner with producer and tech peers to lead your team

Drive the generation and prioritization of your team’s backlog

Collaborate with the QA team to drive testing of the game experience and drive external testing as needed

Evaluate progress and game quality and partner with Production to formulate and revise plans to drive execution

‘Craft the Design’ of your gameplay area

Collaborate with your team to create designs that execute on the agreed upon feature visions

Live our creative process and create necessary documentation

Manage the timely generation of design documentation

‘Steer the Implementation’ of your gameplay vision

Collaborate with Engineers and Animators to steer the execution of your vision

Collaborate with your Project Management and Technical partners to lead your feature team (5-10 developers)

Champion the player experience, bringing the players perspective to all decision making

Be constantly analyzing the software, adding to, grooming and prioritizing the backlog

Inspire and align your team on your vision for your gameplay area

Passionately and clearly present visions to the team

Share design material in asynchronous ways to aid visibility

Work closely with Engineers, Animators, and Artists to implement your vision

Help to create a positive, inclusive and collaborative environment for your team

Be an ‘individual contributor’ when time allows

Understand the technical details of how the game works

Exemplify WGLL by being keen and able to be in engine in order to deliver the strongest possible experience

What Will Make You A Great Fit

Passion for Sports and Sports Video Games

Experience designing high quality ‘second-to-second’ game experiences

Experience with, and passion for, systemic game design

Experience leading a feature team team (7+ developers)

Experience working with Animation SEs and Animators and is familiar with animation technology (Blend techniques, Masking, Procedural Animation etc.).

Appetite for taking on ‘Product Owner’ responsibilities (backlog management and prioritization)

Positive, ‘can do’, proactive and ‘hands-on’ demeanor

Beneficial Qualifications

Experience working on sports games

Experience with animation based features

Experience with AI based features

The pay range for this position in Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada at the start of employment is expected to be between 75,700 CAD and 135,500 CAD per year. However, base pay offered is based on market location, and may vary further depending on individualized factors for job candidates, such as job-related knowledge, skills, experience, and other objective business considerations.