Design Director

Blackbird Interactive is a creative-fueled, future-driven, independent game studio where the best talent in the industry can find long-term careers to help grow their abilities while working on a wide range of projects, which encompass world-class IPs as well as our own creations across multiple genres.

In 2022, we announced that our studio is implementing a four-day work week as well as supporting in-studio, remote within Canada, and hybrid work arrangements as permanent options to our employees.

Blackbird Interactive is looking for an experienced Design Director to provide creative and strategic leadership on a large-scale science fiction game. This role focuses on overseeing the execution of gameplay vision across systems, narrative, and player experience, ensuring consistency, quality, and cohesion as the project moves from development through delivery.

As Design Director, you will work closely with studio leadership, production, and cross-disciplinary partners to guide the design organization, align teams around shared goals, and ensure that gameplay systems meaningfully support exploration, player agency, and long-term engagement. This role emphasizes leadership, clarity, and decision-making at scale, balancing creative ambition with production realities while empowering design teams to do their best work.

Responsibilities:
• Partner with project leadership and publishing stakeholders to understand, reinforce, and execute the established creative vision, translating it into clear design priorities and strategic direction.
• Provide direction and oversight across multiple design disciplines, ensuring gameplay systems, content, and moment-to-moment experiences align with overall project goals.
• Lead, mentor, and support design leadership and senior designers, fostering a strong design culture focused on quality, collaboration, and accountability.
• Work closely with production to plan, scope, and sequence design efforts, identifying risks early and helping teams navigate tradeoffs around quality, schedule, and scope.
• Collaborate with engineering, art, and audio leadership to ensure gameplay intent is clearly expressed, technically feasible, and well supported by tools, workflows, and presentation.
• Establish and maintain design standards, best practices, and review processes that promote consistency and clarity across the project.
• Act as a key communication bridge between design teams and other disciplines, ensuring alignment as features evolve and new challenges emerge.
• Contribute hands-on to the implementation of gameplay content and systems as needed, helping unblock the team, prototype solutions, or carry features through critical phases of development.

Requirements:
• At least 15 years of experience contributing to game development, including at least 10 in a design leadership or senior design role supporting team execution.
• Proven experience shipping large-scale, systems-driven games, ideally within the action or RPG space.
• Deep understanding of gameplay systems, player experience, and moment-to-moment game feel, with the ability to evaluate design quality at a holistic level.
• Demonstrated success leading and developing design teams, including mentoring leaders and guiding cross-disciplinary collaboration.
• Strong production awareness, with the ability to balance creative goals against technical constraints and schedules.
• Exceptional communication skills, with experience aligning diverse teams around shared design goals

Pluses:
• Passion for science fiction games and worlds, especially those centered on exploration, scale, and systemic depth.
• A strong player-first mindset, with sensitivity to clarity, usability, and long-term engagement.
• Appreciation for how design, technology, and presentation combine to create cohesive, memorable experiences.
• Enjoyment of shaping teams and processes, not just features, to raise the overall quality of a project.
• Experience supporting games through long production cycles, adapting direction as projects evolve