Sr. Game Designer - Turn 10 Studios

Turn 10 Studios, creators of the award-winning Forza franchise, is seeking a Senior Game Designer to expand our design capabilities and support our world-class team. We build multi-platform, genre-leading racing games known for innovation, authenticity, and quality. Our vision is to establish Forza as the world's leading brand for automotive entertainment-and we need talented designers to help us realize this goal.

As a Senior Game Designer at Turn 10, you will be part of the creative core responsible for delivering new experiences within the Forza franchise. You'll work closely with both internal and external development teams, serving as a key creative partner and collaborator. Your contributions will span a wide spectrum-from hands-on design implementation and verification of player experiences to research and design support for our development partners and product lines. A significant aspect of this role involves engaging directly with external creative teams, aligning on creative vision, and collaborating on approach to ensure cohesive and compelling player experiences across all Forza products.

Success in this role requires a foundation in game design fundamentals and the ability to craft compelling player experiences. Demonstrating skill in deconstructing successful game systems, understanding their core components, and effectively communicating and building upon them in partnership with external studios. The ability to research emerging markets, identify trends in game design and player behavior, and translate insights for both internal teams and external partners is essential. Partnership skills-including the ability to align creative direction, provide constructive feedback, and co-develop solutions with external development teams-are critical to this role. An analytical, results-driven approach to design, paired with collaborative communication skills, is fundamental to excelling as a Senior Game Designer at Turn 10.

• Partners across disciplines and teams to help define and push design goals to drive key deliverables.
• Applies knowledge of all relevant tools in the workflow as they relate to multiple feature areas to guide others to use the optimal tools in content / experience development.
• Review titles in development, crafting clear, constructive, and thoughtful feedback on opportunities for improvement.
• Provides insights into product challenges by adding additional perspectives, removing bias by recognizing the many scenarios and player personas needs
• Choosing to perform the right research to get to the right solution for the product at the feature level.
• Create and refine clear and concise design documentation for key systems in support of existing experiences as well as experiences in development.
• Drive tuning of existing gameplay systems and mechanics in a tight iteration loop with user research.

Required Qualifications:

• Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science, Art, Writing, Behavioral Science, Data Science, Game Design, or related field AND 4+ years experience in game development and design, systems design, content production, or related field OR Associate's Degree in Computer Science, Art, Writing, Behavioral Science, Game Design, or related field AND 6+ years experience in game development and design, systems design, content production, or related field OR equivalent experience.
• Have shipped at least 1 title released to consumers/shipped game.

Preferred Qualifications:

• Holistic design approach including feature documentation experience combined with the soft skills required to influence both internal and external partners.
• Experience shipping multi-platform experiences is a plus.
• Experience with optimizing game systems in a live operations environment.
• Passion, excitement and experience with racing games and automotive topics in general

Game Design IC5 - The typical base pay range for this role across the U.S. is USD $119,800 - $234,700 per year. There is a different range applicable to specific work locations, within the San Francisco Bay area and New York City metropolitan area, and the base pay range for this role in those locations is USD $158,400 - $258,000 per year.

Certain roles may be eligible for benefits and other compensation. Find additional benefits and pay information here:
https://careers.microsoft.com/us/en/us-corporate-pay

This position will be open for a minimum of 5 days, with applications accepted on an ongoing basis until the position is filled.

Microsoft is an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to age, ancestry, citizenship, color, family or medical care leave, gender identity or expression, genetic information, immigration status, marital status, medical condition, national origin, physical or mental disability, political affiliation, protected veteran or military status, race, ethnicity, religion, sex (including pregnancy), sexual orientation, or any other characteristic protected by applicable local laws, regulations and ordinances. If you need assistance with religious accommodations and/or a reasonable accommodation due to a disability during the application process, read more about requesting accommodations.