Senior Game Designer

Design the systems that make a game impossible to predict

Proxima is an independent game studio founded by former Electronic Arts talent. After its first title, Suck Up!, took off with creators and generated more than 300 million views, the studio is now working on its second game: a PC simulation title.

They're looking for a Senior Game Designer to take a major role in defining how that game actually works.

This isn't a position where you'll simply receive features to design. Proxima operates with small, autonomous teams, so you'll have significant influence over the game's creative direction, progression, underlying systems, and ultimately what keeps players engaged.

What you'll be working on

A large part of the role is about creating systems that interact with each other in interesting—and sometimes unexpected—ways.

You'll:

• Help establish the game's core pillars, progression and overall design direction.
• Build interconnected mechanics capable of producing emergent gameplay.
• Use player psychology to understand what makes systems rewarding, engaging and worth returning to.
• Design the mathematical models behind progression, resources and game economies.
• Build sophisticated spreadsheets to simulate systems and test balancing decisions before they reach players.
• Prototype ideas and take them through implementation, balancing and playtesting.
• Work directly inside Unity rather than stopping at design documentation.
• Partner with engineers when new tools or technical solutions are needed to make the design work.

They're looking for a systems thinker

Proxima wants someone who thinks about games as networks of rules and consequences rather than sequences of scripted events.

You'll need at least 5 years of professional game design experience, including experience taking a game from an early prototype through launch.

Strong systems design is central to the position. You should be comfortable working with progression curves, resource economies, mathematical models and complex spreadsheets—not just concepts and mechanics.

You'll also need hands-on experience with Unity and enough technical understanding to work effectively with engineers and implement parts of your own designs.

Just as importantly, Proxima is looking for someone who understands why players behave the way they do and can translate that understanding into mechanics that remain interesting as different systems begin interacting.

Why this one is interesting

It's an unusually broad Senior Game Designer position.

You're joining the studio while its next game is still being shaped, working with a deliberately small team and getting responsibility across creative direction, player psychology, systems design, balancing and implementation.

For a game designer who prefers building the rules behind an experience rather than designing isolated features, there's a lot of ownership here.