Senior Game Designer Speculative Application in London

Studio Overview

We are Sports Interactive, the studio behind Football Manager. Founded in 1994, Sports Interactive became a wholly owned subsidiary of SEGA Europe in 2006. Based at the Here East technology hub in Stratford, East London, the SI team continues to expand as we bring our titles to an ever-growing audience across an increasing variety of platforms. To support our growth, we welcome the opportunity to connect with passionate people with the drive to match our ambitions and initiative to realise your individual potential.

Position Overview

Sports Interactive are looking for a talented Senior Game Designer to join the studio and work on the Football Manager franchise. As a Senior Game Designer, you will be responsible for taking ownership of and driving the latest feature designs for Football Manager projects, coordinating with stakeholders to ensure quality throughout development. Typical activities will include defining features, systems and interfaces; aiming to feed our football simulation with more quality, depth and authenticity.

You will join an ambitious and passionate team who care deeply about delivering an outstanding Football Manager experience for our players. As a Senior member of the team, you will exemplify design excellence and delivery.

The ideal candidate will be a pro‑active, self‑motivated, and creative individual, with outstanding communication skills, solid design methodology, and the ability to drive features from inception to delivery at pace within a cross‑disciplinary team.

Key Responsibilities

• Own and design engaging, complex gameplay features and systems from concept to release to deliver the highest quality Football Manager experience.
• Define feature goals, player experience, constraints, and success criteria in collaboration with design and creative leadership.
• Collaborate closely with UI/UX and Narrative Designers on feature proposals and definition.
• Produce and maintain high quality documentation and champion upcoming design features with Production, Engineering, QA and Communications teams.
• Pro‑actively identify design risks and opportunities, proposing solutions and improvements.
• Contribute to the wider game vision, proposing key ideas and game improvements to creative leadership to help shape the feature roadmap.
• Collaborate with design leadership in defining and delivering qualitative design methodologies such as test plans, prototyping, user‑testing, analytics and iterative development.
• Implement content, define tooling requirements, tune data and help balance systems directly in Unity when required.
• Mentor and support less experienced designers through feedback, reviews and knowledge sharing.
• Evaluate released features using player feedback, telemetry and internal reviews, identify opportunities for future improvements.

Knowledge, Skills And Experience

• Systems‑driven game designer who has an appreciation for complexity, depth, and simulation‑heavy topics, with a strong understanding of balance, progression and emergent gameplay.
• Autonomous and proactive, capable of driving feature quality and alignment across distributed cross‑disciplinary teams.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills for effective collaboration with other Designers, Software Engineers, Artists, Animators, QA and Producers.
• Comfortable interpreting quantitative data and player feedback to inform design decisions.
• Passionate about both football and video game development, with good knowledge of Football Manager.
• Strong understanding of game design and UX principles for PC‑first experiences.
• Exceptional attention to detail and a methodical approach to design.
• Experience shipping at least one commercial title through a full development cycle, ideally within simulation or systems‑heavy genres.
• Experience within a ‘Senior’ role including mentoring and/or people management would be beneficial.
• Experience working with modern game development tools and engines such as Unity or similar.
• Advanced proficiency with Excel and other data‑driven analysis and balancing tools.
• Proficient with Miro, PowerPoint and the Atlassian suite (Confluence, Jira, Jira Product Discovery).
• Computer science, game design or other relevant educational background would be beneficial.

Benefits Of Working At Sports Interactive

• Private Healthcare and Dental Plans.
• A range of Gym Membership options through our Benefits partners.
• Travel Insurance for yourself and your family.
• Subsidised mental health, therapy, and coaching sessions are available.
• Access to our on‑site physical and massage therapist services.
• Free access to games released under the SEGA Europe umbrella.
• Contributory Pension Scheme (up to 7% of annual salary).
• Regular events in collaboration with our partnered football clubs.
• Free onsite evening bar in our London HQ.
• A well‑stocked breakfast bar with cereals, fruits, teas, and coffees.
• Multiple clubs and societies to join e.g., book club and art workshops.
• Your club’s shirt personalised upon passing probation.
• Trophies and gift cards for length of service milestones.
• Cupcakes delivered on your birthday.

We are proud to be an equal opportunities employer and encourage applications from any relevant candidate irrespective of sex, race, disability, age, sexual orientation, gender reassignment, marriage or civil partnership, pregnancy or maternity, religion, or belief. SI is proudly a Disability Confident and Committed employer, and we are dedicated to ensuring our recruitment process is inclusive and accessible. Our studio has disabled access and facilities but please ensure you advise us if you require any other reasonable adjustments to be made to support you during the recruitment process.