Principal Systems Designer in Canada Creek, Nova Scotia at Jobgether

This position is listed on behalf of a partner company, who manages all applications and next steps. Our partner is looking for a Principal Systems Designer based in Canada.

This is an opportunity to shape the foundational systems of an unannounced, free-to-play, mobile-first live-service game built around a globally recognized IP.
You’ll work at the pre-production stage, defining the progression, economy, rewards, and scaling systems that will support the player experience for years to come.
As a hands-on individual contributor, you’ll take complex, ambiguous design challenges from initial concept through implementation, tuning, and launch readiness.
You’ll combine quantitative modeling, gameplay insight, and in-engine implementation to create systems that are both engaging and scalable.
Close collaboration with gameplay, combat, engineering, and production teams will be essential to ensuring systems work cohesively across the game.
This role offers significant creative ownership and the opportunity to establish systems and tools that can evolve throughout a long-term live-service lifecycle.

• Design and implement core game systems covering progression, combat scaling, economy, rewards, and related player-facing mechanics from initial concepts through shippable implementation.
• Partner closely with gameplay and combat designers to ensure abilities, RPG progression, power scaling, and content difficulty reinforce a cohesive player experience.
• Build and maintain quantitative models, simulations, spreadsheets, and tuning tools for loot tables, XP curves, costs, stat growth, and other progression mechanics.
• Implement, tune, balance, and iterate on systems directly in Unity and supporting design tools, remaining closely involved throughout development.
• Collaborate with engineering to define and improve authoring tools, pipelines, and workflows that enable efficient systems development, balancing, and iteration.
• Use playtest feedback, analytics, and other evidence to evaluate system performance, identify opportunities, and make informed design decisions.
• Create clear and actionable design documentation that enables engineering, production, and design partners to execute effectively.
• Evaluate proposed systems constructively, identifying risks, trade-offs, dependencies, and opportunities while ensuring solutions can evolve with future content.
• Work across disciplines to resolve ambiguous zero-to-one problems and transform them into scalable, well-instrumented systems suitable for a long-term live-service environment.

• 8+ years of experience designing and owning complex game systems, ideally spanning progression, economies, combat-adjacent systems, or related mechanics through development, launch, or live operations.
• Strong technical capabilities, including advanced spreadsheet skills and hands-on experience implementing systems in Unity, Unreal, proprietary engines, scripting environments, or comparable design and development tools.
• Deep understanding of RPG progression and scaling, including power curves, stat growth, gear or ability scaling, and how these systems interact with combat and content difficulty.
• Strong quantitative and analytical skills, with the ability to interpret data thoughtfully and understand both its strengths and limitations when making design decisions.
• Demonstrated ability to take systems from initial definition through implementation, tuning, iteration, and a shippable state.
• Ability to turn ambiguous design challenges into clear frameworks, specifications, and documentation that engineering, production, and design teams can act upon.
• Experience collaborating closely with combat, gameplay, and content designers to connect progression systems with moment-to-moment gameplay.
• Strong communication, collaboration, and feedback skills, with a constructive approach to cross-functional problem solving and iteration.
• A hands-on mindset and willingness to remain deeply involved in implementation, tuning, playtesting, and refinement rather than operating solely at a strategic level.
• Experience with free-to-play collector games, multiplayer action RPGs, or licensed IP is considered an asset.

• Opportunity to shape the foundational systems of a new mobile-first, free-to-play live-service title from the pre-production stage.
• Significant ownership over progression, economy, combat scaling, rewards, and other core systems.
• Collaborative environment working closely with experienced gameplay, systems, engineering, production, and creative professionals.
• Opportunity to work on a globally recognized intellectual property.
• Remote work opportunity for candidates based in Canada.
• Exposure to large-scale live-service game development and systems designed for long-term player engagement.
• Opportunity to influence design tools, workflows, and systems architecture from an early stage.
• Inclusive, collaborative culture focused on creativity, innovation, and meaningful player experiences.
• Additional compensation, benefits, and employment terms may be discussed as part of the hiring process.