Senior Game Designer

Jackbox Games is looking for a Senior Game Designer to join our team!

Who are We?

Jackbox is a mid-sized game studio (~80 people) best known for our Jackbox Party Pack franchise: a set of five social party games released every fall. Since 2014, our games--like Quiplash, Drawful, and Trivia Murder Party-- have been featured on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon, by Polygon, and in living rooms and finished basements across the world.

In 2020, we had over 200 million users. And we have hard evidence that one of those users was Academy Award-winner Charlize Theron.

You can learn everything you ever wanted to know about how our games work (spoiler: your phone is the controller!) and who we are and what we make at Jackbox Games.

What’s the Job?

Jackbox Games is seeking a Senior Game Designer to provide creative leadership and design expertise for our acclaimed Party Pack series. In this senior role, you'll create innovative game concepts, lead design teams, and ensure our games deliver the perfect blend of humor, accessibility, and engagement that defines the Jackbox experience.

As a Senior Game Designer, you'll be a creative force on our team, conceptualizing new games, crafting compelling player experiences, and collaborating with the Game Directors while maintaining our commitment to making games that anyone can play and everyone can enjoy.

Key Responsibilities

• Lead game design efforts from initial concept through final production across Party Pack titles
• Create original game concepts and pitch new ideas for future Party Packs
• Design core game loops, progression systems, and player engagement mechanics
• Establish design best practices and maintain consistency across multiple titles
• Conduct and analyze playtests to iterate on game mechanics and player experience
• Collaborate with Creative Directors, artists, engineers, and audio teams to bring designs to life
• Balance gameplay to ensure casual player accessibility while maintaining competitive depth
• Present design concepts and game pitches to stakeholders and executive leadership
• Champion player-first design through user research and data analysis
• Able to create engaging gameplay with only a few, easy to understand rules
• Ability to take accessible ideas and make them a bit wacky, or take wacky ideas and make them accessible
• Experience designing for mobile touchscreen interfaces
  

Required Qualifications

• 6+ years of game design experience with multiple shipped titles
• Proven track record designing successful multiplayer or social games
• Strong understanding of party game dynamics and social play patterns
• Familiarity with scripting languages for rapid prototyping
• Experience leading design teams and mentoring other designers
• Demonstrated ability to create original game concepts and mechanics
• Strong analytical skills for interpreting player feedback and metrics
• Experience with rapid prototyping and iterative design processes
• Deep understanding of game balancing and player progression systems
• Passion for creating inclusive, accessible gaming experiences

We value kind, motivated, and creative people. Jackbox Games is a group effort and you must work collaboratively. Everyone here is committed to excellence and desires to work in a comfortable, friendly atmosphere.

Jackbox Games is committed to providing opportunities without regard to race, color, religion, creed, sex, pregnancy, sexual orientation, gender identity, genetic information, national origin, ancestry, age, veteran status, or disability. 

Okay, but what are the perks?

• Pay range: $105,393 - $126,512. Please note: individual compensation packages are based on factors unique to each candidate and position, including (but not limited to) skill set, experience, and qualifications.
• 401(k) with matching and medical, dental, vision, disability, and life insurance options.
• Flexible work schedule and environment. Currently, our employees are encouraged to work where they feel the safest and most productive. Our office in Lincoln Park in Chicago is open (and fully stocked with snacks) for folks who prefer to work in the office. We also offer remote work in the following states: California, Florida, Illinois, Indiana, Massachusetts, Michigan, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas, Vermont, Washington, and Wisconsin.
• Flexible PTO. Take time off when you need to recharge, take a trip, or just catch up on life.
• Annual stipends for therapy, growth, wellness, and home office equipment to encourage our employees’ lifelong learning pursuits and support mental and physical health.
• Creative work environment. We are lucky to work in a place that is full of talented and innovative folks. Most of the day, the place is pretty quiet (we’re a focused bunch), but this is punctuated with hilarious outbursts and general merriment.
• Free food either virtually or in the office. We stock our kitchen with snacks as well as offer doordash credits quite frequently.

Interested?

Great, we look forward to reading your application. Please include:

• Your resume.
• A cover letter. You don't need to be a professional writer for this job (we have those) but communication is important so we weigh cover letters heavily. We would love to hear a bit about why you are interested in working at Jackbox Games.
• Links to your professional work.  *(personal website/portfolio etc)

Notice something that doesn't quite make sense--great. We want designers that think critically and understand the nuances of job postings in this day and age.

On the fence? If you're interested in the job but worried you aren't qualified, we encourage you to err on the side of applying. We'd hate to miss out on great candidates just because they're worried they don't check every box on the job description.

We know it is a time commitment to prepare an application and we respect that effort by thoughtfully reviewing every complete application and responding one way or the other. But that kind of thoughtful review means that it sometimes takes us a while to get back to applicants, so please be patient with us and no phone calls.

Thanks for your interest in Jackbox Games!