Lead Game Designer

Lead Game Designer at Little GrandMasters Ltd., focusing on our ChessPalace App.

A very exciting opportunity to join the team of Little GrandMasters™ and be one of the key team members shaping our development as the Lead Game Designer. We are currently working on our first game, the Chess Palace App, based on the award winning method developed by Judit Polgar, the Greatest Female Chess Player of All Times.

We are a venture studio dedicated to making accessible, exciting, empowering mobile games and e-learning tools for kids. We specialise in creating engaging digital tools and playful learning experiences that nurture problem-solving, critical thinking, helping children develop durable life skills and creativity.

At Little GrandMasters™, we believe every child has the potential to become a grandmaster. Our mission is to spark young minds through games, transforming the way kids learn strategy, patience, and confidence — helping millions of children, one move at a time.

Role Overview

As a Lead Game Designer, you will shape the player experience by designing and developing engaging game features and improving core gameplay. You will collaborate with the existing teams to ensure features are fun, educational and aligned with the Judit Polgar Method and the existing games in the Chess Palace books.

This role blends hands-on game design with leadership to oversee the development of new experiences and mini games in collaboration with internal stakeholders and external partners. You will design, develop the metagame and implement mini game experiences, tools, and content to delight young players 4-10.

In this role, you will:

• Use the wealth of our existing pedagogical content as reference material for digital experience design
• Act as lead in shaping vision & strategy integrated with the existing methodology, lead and oversee the design of game features, level design, setting standards for quality and fun.
• Manage feature development from concept to launch, including iterations, staying hands-on.
• Drive collaborative and iterative prototyping
• Continuously monitor market trends to suggest new game concepts or features for exploration.
• Collaborate with product, art and marketing teams to optimise design.
• Ensure features support business and monetisation goals while continuously adding features and systems to boost engagement and conversion and if necessary, iterate features or systems leveraging data insight
• Collaborate with internal and external teams to drive tools and content development forward, serving as a visionary for overall development and publishing efforts.
• Actively participate in big-picture decisions of the company and team to focus on the correct elements to achieve inspiring results

Skills, Knowledge & Expertise we are looking for

• Proven experience working with mobile games, including prototyping, development and with a preference prior experience with kids games for K-12.
• Published game(s) before in kids category
• Strong knowledge of K-12 children game trends and monetisation
• Hands-on experience managing game feature development.
• Strong analytical skills, including interpreting player data, running A/B tests with the Product team and using analytics to inform design decisions.
• Strong understanding of mobile games UX.
• Business mindset with a balance of creativity and commercial focus.
• Able to adapt to market feedback and changing needs.
• Passion for mobile gaming and chess.
• Expert knowledge of game design principles, child player psychology and the economics of play for children’s games
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills and cross functional working standards
• Get it done attitude
• Work hand-in-hand with design and art teams to bring ideas from concept to final implementation
• Understanding of the whole game development process from ideation, pre-production, and production through to shipping the final product
• Experience building and hiring a small team.
• Fluent in English, with great collaboration and communication skills

Nice-to-have

• Chess enthusiast

The Role:

• Full time Hybrid or Remote depending on your location. (European time zones)