Game Design Manager - AAA Sports Simulator

About the role

SportSpired Games, an international studio developing next-generation sports simulators, is looking for a Game Design Manager to lead and develop its Game Design team. The role drives execution, improves workflows and ensures high-quality design delivery for a large-scale AAA title planned for release in 2028-2029. It works closely with the Creative Director, Design Leads and Production.

Key responsibilities

• Lead and develop the Game Design team, including hiring, performance reviews, regular feedback, mentoring and career development
• Support Design Leads in team management, workload planning and developing their designers
• Translate creative strategy and priorities into design roadmaps, team objectives and measurable deliverables
• Allocate work across Design Leads and Designers, tracking progress, risks and bottlenecks against production milestones
• Strengthen feature ownership and oversee feature pre-production, design documentation standards and review processes
• Define quality standards, acceptance criteria and Definition of Done with the Creative Director and Design Leads
• Drive consistent design workflows, tools and best practices across teams
• Coordinate with Production, Engineering, Animation, Art, QA and UX to resolve dependencies and align design decisions
• Organize competitor research and turn approved findings into hypotheses and experiments
• Promote knowledge sharing and continuous improvement across the Design team

Required profile

• 3+ years of experience managing Game Designers and coordinating design teams on complex PC or console game projects
• Ability to translate strategic objectives into actionable plans and drive them through execution
• Strong understanding of game development pipelines, production workflows and the full feature development lifecycle
• Experience managing priorities, scope, schedules, dependencies and production risks
• Strong people management, communication and stakeholder management skills