Senior Level Designer (5-month contract)

Blackbird Interactive is looking for an experienced Senior Level Designer to help build and deliver high-quality gameplay spaces for a third-person military tactical shooter. This role focuses on designing levels, combat spaces, and environments that promote engaging player interactions, support multiple playstyles, and deliver memorable multiplayer experiences through strong pacing, readability, and spatial design.

You'll work closely with game design, art, engineering, and production to create levels that are fun to play, strategically engaging, and visually compelling. The role involves collaborating with leadership to align content with the overall creative vision while owning levels end-to-end, from initial concept and blockout through implementation, iteration, and polish. If you enjoy crafting dynamic combat spaces, encouraging player choice, and creating highly replayable multiplayer experiences, this role could be a great fit.

Responsibilities

• Collaborate with game design, art, engineering, and production to implement the established creative vision while identifying risks, dependencies, or inconsistencies as they arise during development

• Design and build levels end-to-end, including layout, combat spaces, traversal, pacing, player flow, and objective placement

• Create and implement tactical combat spaces that support flanking, cover usage, squad coordination, sightlines, and multiple approaches to objectives

• Script and set up gameplay events, encounters, AI behaviors, triggers, and environmental interactions to support mission functionality and player experience

• Test, debug, and iterate on levels regularly, identifying and resolving issues related to navigation, combat balance, player flow, readability, progression, and edge cases

• Maintain an understanding of core gameplay systems and AI behaviors, adjusting layouts and encounters to support tactical gameplay and multiple player approaches

Requirements

• A minimum of 8 years of experience contributing to game development, with a strong focus on level design within action, shooter, or combat-focused games

• Experience shipping at least one title, ideally within the shooter space, with an understanding of the full content lifecycle from implementation through polish

• Hands-on experience with Unreal Engine 5, with confidence using in-engine level editing tools, Blueprint scripting, and gameplay workflows to build, implement, debug, and iterate on gameplay spaces

• Comfort working independently on assigned content, with the ability to manage tasks, iterate on feedback, and solve implementation challenges in a dynamic production environment

• Strong collaboration and communication skills, with the ability to work closely across design, art, engineering, audio, and production to deliver cohesive gameplay experiences

• Strong understanding of combat space design, player navigation, encounter pacing, gameplay readability, and multiplayer level flow

Pluses

• A passion for military fiction, tactical shooters, and squad-based gameplay

• Appreciation for systemic gameplay and how level design supports multiple tactical approaches and emergent combat scenarios

• An interest in cinematic mission design, including staging, composition, scripted moments, and environmental storytelling

• Care about polish, clarity, and player comprehension, and enjoy iterating on spaces to improve navigation, combat readability, and overall gameplay experience

• Curiosity about how level design, AI, and systems intersect to create cohesive, replayable combat experiences rather than isolated encounters