Senior Game Designer

Mojang Studios is best known as the creators of Minecraft, but we’re also on a mission – to build a better world through the power of play.

Why play? Well, play is at the heart of everything we do. It’s the blocky backbone of our games, the core of our development philosophy, and even the origin of our name. From the relentless experimentation of our endlessly inspiring community to the classrooms where Minecraft has become an essential teaching tool, play is the bedrock of our existence.

About the role

We, the Minecraft Gameplay team, are looking for somebody to help us provide our fantastic community of over 100 million players with more fun and an even better game, for many more years to come. This is not an ordinary design or developer role. In this role, your responsibility will be to help drive the creative vision for the game, and gameplay feature design. Be the voice for the players and help add as much delight as possible for years to come.

The Minecraft Gameplay team is responsible for the gameplay of the original Minecraft game, on all platforms and for all players. Our feature development process is very iterative, and we build new gameplay in close collaboration with our huge and diverse community.

As a Senior Game Designer, you will work closely together with the rest of the Minecraft team and our community to develop new features in Minecraft and to improve existing gameplay. You will be part of the full process of gameplay development - from brainstorming and design to implementation and maintenance.

Key responsibilities
As a Senior Game Designer in the Minecraft Gameplay team, you will:

• Execute on the creative vision of Minecraft.

• Work in a cross functional team collaborating closely with artists, audio designers, engineers and others – from ideation, to prototyping, all the way to release and beyond.

• Drive the creation of design ideas and concepts related to new and existing features.

• Drive and lead design discussions, elevating both the team and crafts understanding of game design principles and methodology.

• Test, evaluate and balance your designs in cooperation with Data Science, Community Developers and other departments.

• Be part of the Minecraft design craft – giving and receiving feedback on your work from your craft and sharing general knowledge so that you can grow as a collective.

What you need to succeed

To fit in this role, we believe it would be good for you to have:

• Experience of working with gameplay design in the games industry.

• A good knowledge of game design and understanding of contextualized design.

• The desire to be part of a creative and highly collaborative team and ability to work with feedback and direction.

• A drive to facilitate team discussions and workshops to create alignment and an ability to efficiently articulate rationales, feedback design choices.

• Excellent communication skills, both verbally and in written form.

• A humble, friendly and inclusive mindset that will contribute to our studio culture.

• Playing Minecraft, and a good understanding of what makes Minecraft what it is.

• A basic understanding of Java and C++ development.

About this role:
This is a full-time role based in Stockholm with a hybrid remote working model. You'll collaborate with our studio colleagues in Redmond, USA, and across various disciplines. This position sometimes has off hour meetings mainly with West coast USA representatives. Please note that we are only able to consider applications from candidates currently residing within the EU.

Mojang Studios

Mojang Studios is a Microsoft-owned game developer. The company was founded in Stockholm, Sweden and has offices around the world, including Stockholm, Redmond, Tokyo, London, and Shanghai. We’re always working on new and exciting ways to expand the Minecraft universe.

Our community is global and incredibly diverse. We keep this in mind when developing anything, as we want people to feel included in Minecraft. And in recruiting, our goal is to make Mojang Studios as diverse as our community.

We got started as a tiny indie developer, and part of our culture still reflects that heritage. But we’re also proud to belong to Xbox Game Studios, which creates unique opportunities to grow and develop.

To help us achieve amazing things, we have built an equally amazing studio space. Situated right on the water by Söder Mälarstrand, it’s filled to the brim with all the tools, toys and caffeine required to create world-class entertainment.

But in the end, it’s the people of Mojang Studios that make this place truly special. When you join, you’ll find yourself in the company of incredibly bright, warm, and creative individuals – all united and working toward a single goal. Come help us reach it!

Important note on resumes
Please make sure that all the information in your resume is accurate because we will conduct a thorough background check. Any discrepancies will lower your chances of getting to the next interview stage and we’d hate to miss out on an awesome candidate! Double check that any gap years are reflected in your history, and that your education and work experience are completely accurate. Good luck!