{"id":918634,"url":"https://alion.io/job/gramgames-principal-game-designer","title":"Principal Game Designer","company":{"id":674440,"name":"Gram Games","domain":"gramgames.com","url":"https://alion.io/company/gramgames","size_band":"51-200","is_staffing_agency":false,"employer_type":"direct","is_intermediary":false,"listed_via":null,"ats_vendor":"Greenhouse","truth_index":null},"role":"Games","role_family":"Games","seniority":"lead","employment_type":null,"work_mode":"on_site","remote_scope":null,"remote_scope_basis":null,"remote_working_hours":null,"hiring_geo_confidence":"structured","locations":["London, United Kingdom"],"countries":["GB"],"hiring_countries":[],"hiring_countries_total":0,"salary":null,"salary_estimate":{"min_usd":62000,"max_usd":150000,"period":"year","method":"global_role_cell_scaled_by_country","sample_n":26},"experience_years_min":null,"visa_sponsorship":false,"relocation_package":false,"has_equity":false,"technologies":[{"name":"Telegram","optional":false},{"name":"WhatsApp","optional":false}],"status":"closed","first_seen_at":"2026-08-14T09:54:50Z","employer_posted_date":"2026-09-10","last_verified_at":"2026-09-25T14:33:05Z","board_verified":false,"closed_at":"2026-09-25T14:33:05Z","days_open":42,"trust":{"level":"not_scored","repost_count":null,"flags":[],"days_open":42},"description":"Who We Are:\nGram Games is the studio behind popular titles like 1010!, Six!, Merge Dragons!, and Merge Magic!, with more exciting projects in the pipeline. We are proudly part of the Zynga & Take-Two Interactive family. We do things differently here: we work in small self-managing teams, giving you an incredible amount of ownership, autonomy, and impact. \nAt Gram, everyone is expected to have a razor-sharp focus on creating a tangible impact on their team, their work environment, and on the overall company strategy. If you are motivated by autonomy, constant improvement, collaboration, and a sense of belonging, this is the place for you.\nPosition Overview:\nAs the Lead Game Designer for a brand-new game team, you will initially champion the \"0-to-1\" development of an exciting new Merge 2 title. You will own the game’s creative vision, architecting its core loop, progression systems, and meta-game from scratch. As the project matures, you will transition the team into soft launch and live operations, overseeing the day-to-day economy balance, event pipelines, and monetization features designed to drive long-term player retention.\nWhat You'll do: \nOwn and drive the game's vision, aligning it with product goals and communicating it clearly to the team and stakeholders to build shared commitment.\nLead ideation and brainstorming, and translate player motivations and behavior into user experience stories, wireframes, and optimal feature design.\nMentor and grow a team of designers, fostering a collaborative, creative environment with clear goals and strong execution standards.\nPartner with product, engineering, and art to guide features from concept through implementation, reviewing and approving final designs.\nImprove design tools and processes to streamline the pipeline and boost team efficiency and productivity.\nUse live feedback and analytics to refine systems, maintain a balanced game economy, and champion design best practices across the studio.\nWhat are we looking for? \nEffective communicator with outstanding verbal, written, interpersonal, and presentation skills.\nHighly proficient with mathematical concepts and formula creation in a game environment\nProven history of designing systems that influence player behaviors and achieve key product performance indicators.\nExpert in crafting features, systems, core game loops, economies, and meta-designs to foster and enhance positive player behaviors.\nExcels in a live service game environment, adept at making adjustments based on feedback from an active community.\nSolid experience in the gaming industry in a design role, contributing meaningfully to multiple released titles\nExtensive experience leading a diverse and skilled design team\nProven track record of successfully shipping games\nWhat we offer you: \nHighly competitive salary\nPrivate medical care\nCompany bonus scheme\nRelocation assistance for those moving to the UK\nAwesome onsite chef serving breakfast, lunch, and lots of treats (naughty and nice)\nLife insurance and a favorable pension scheme\nHealthcare cash plan including dental and optical coverage\nAmazing tech to work with and consoles to play and relax with everywhere you look!\nWe are proud to be an equal opportunity employer, which means we are committed to creating and celebrating diverse thoughts, cultures, and backgrounds throughout our organization. Employment with us is based on substantive ability, objective qualifications, and work ethic - not an individual’s race, creed, color, religion, sex or gender, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, national origin or ancestry, alienage or citizenship status, physical or mental disability, pregnancy, age, genetic information, veteran status, marital status, status as a victim of domestic violence or sex offenses, reproductive health decision, or any other characteristics protected by applicable law.\nAs an equal opportunity employer, we are committed to providing the necessary support and accommodation to qualified individuals with disabilities, health conditions, or impairments (subject to any local qualifying requirements) to ensure their full participation in the job application or interview process. Please contact us at  to request any accommodations or for support related to your application for an open position.\nPlease be aware that Zynga does not conduct job interviews or make job offers over third-party messaging apps such as Telegram, WhatsApp, or others. Zynga also does not engage in any financial exchanges during the recruitment or onboarding process, and will never ask a candidate for their personal or financial information over an app or other unofficial chat channel. Any attempt to do so may be the result of a scamp or phishing attack, and you should not engage. Zynga’s in-house recruitment team will only contact individuals through their official Company email addresses (i.e., via a zynga.com, take2games.com, naturalmotion.com, smallgiantgames.com, themavens.com, gram.gs email domain).","description_format":"text","description_chars":5017,"description_truncated":false,"requirements":{"experience_years_min":null,"management_years_min":null,"team_size_min":null,"manages_managers":false,"education":null,"security_clearance":false,"languages":[]},"benefits":["Life insurance","Relocation assistance"],"hiring_locations":[{"name":"United Kingdom","iso":"GB","kind":"country"}],"hiring_excludes":[],"relocation_offered":true,"industries":["Game Development"],"lifecycle":[{"event":"open","at":"2026-09-14T22:30:28Z"},{"event":"close","at":"2026-09-25T14:33:05Z"}],"visa":[{"country":"GB","licensed_sponsor":true,"evidence":"Licensed UK visa sponsor (Skilled Worker, Senior or Specialist Worker)","filings_12m":null,"filings_prev_12m":null,"green_card_filings_12m":null,"median_offered_wage_usd":null,"route":"Skilled Worker; Global Business Mobility: Senior or Specialist Worker","cap_exempt":false,"checked_at":"2026-10-17T06:21:15+00:00","sources":["UK Home Office: register of licensed sponsors (workers)"],"filings_for_role_12m":0}],"liveness":null,"pay":null,"html_url":"https://alion.io/job/gramgames-principal-game-designer","json_url":"https://alion.io/job/gramgames-principal-game-designer.json","meta":{"generated_at":"2026-10-19T23:31:37Z","cache_seconds":300,"methodology":"https://alion.io/methodology","terms":"https://alion.io/terms","contact":"https://alion.io/contact","api":"https://alion.io/developers","about":"Alion is a live layer of people, companies and AI agents: who they are, whether they are real and active right now, what they do and how to work with them, readable by people and by agents and paid per call.","catalog":"https://alion.io/catalog.json","usage":{"tier":"crawler_verified","counted_by":"address","units_charged":1,"used_today":2333,"day_limit":null,"remaining_today":null,"minute_limit":300,"resets_at":"2026-10-20T00:00:00Z"}},"offers":[{"id":"company.slices","title":"One company in depth, by slice","status":"live","price":{"credits":0.02,"usd":0.002,"plus_per_slice":{"credits":0.05,"usd":0.005}},"unit":"per company, plus each slice with data","note":"the employer in depth","call":{"mcp_tool":"get_company","arguments":{"id":674440},"rest":"https://alion.io/mcp/rest/get_company?id=674440"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.slices&for=job%2Fgramgames-principal-game-designer"},{"id":"market.stats","title":"A market slice: pay, demand and time to fill","status":"live","price":{"credits":1,"usd":0.1},"unit":"per slice","note":"pay, demand and time to fill for this role and place","call":{"mcp_tool":"market_stats"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=market.stats&for=job%2Fgramgames-principal-game-designer"},{"id":"job.search","title":"Open jobs by role, technology, place, pay and visa","status":"live","price":{"credits":0.02,"usd":0.002},"unit":"per posting in a list","note":"similar open postings","call":{"mcp_tool":"search_jobs"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=job.search&for=job%2Fgramgames-principal-game-designer"},{"id":"company.verify","title":"Is this company real and active right now","status":"pilot","price":null,"unit":"per company","request":{"url":"https://alion.io/catalog/request","method":"POST","body":"{\"offer\": \"company.verify\", \"for\": \"job/gramgames-principal-game-designer\", \"note\": \"what you need it for\"}"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.verify&for=job%2Fgramgames-principal-game-designer"}]}