Campaign Design Lead

Absurd Ventures

📍Santa Monica, CA
Posted May 24, 2026

Job Overview

Position

Campaign Design Lead

Company

Absurd Ventures

Location

Santa Monica, CA

Work Type

On-site

Job ID

li-4418679539

Job Description

Summary
As Campaign Design Lead, you will be the primary vision holder and a hands-on contributor for story missions and single-player campaigns. Lead a multi-disciplinary team to deliver critical path and side missions that combine best-in-class storytelling and action gameplay in an open world setting.

Responsibilities

  • Drive the design and implementation of engaging, diverse, innovative missions within a story-driven, open-world game.

  • Work closely with the narrative team to develop the flow of main story missions.

  • Develop and execute the mission design vision and strategy, ensuring that missions align with the game's overall narrative, thematic, and player experience goals.

  • Continuously seek opportunities to innovate and push the boundaries of mission design.

  • Leverage the game's open-world systems and mechanics to create dynamic and unpredictable mission experiences that adapt to player choices and actions.

  • Lead and mentor a team of mission designers, providing direction, feedback and support throughout the development process.

  • Go beyond documentation and management to lead from the trenches, with hands-on contributions to the playable experience.

  • Foster a culture of collaboration, innovation and iteration.

Qualifications

  • 5 or more years of experience in mission design, ideally within an open-world game.

  • Excellent communication, interpersonal, and leadership skills.

  • Innovative thinker with creative problem-solving skills who thrives in a collaborative team environment.

  • Strong understanding of storytelling and narrative design.

  • Experience leading multidisciplinary teams is a plus.

  • Experience in UE4 or UE5 is a plus.

  • Experience working with co-development partners is a plus.

Description

  • Full time job with benefits

  • Role is on-site in Santa Monica, CA

  • Office is located near downtown Santa Monica – near metro and freeways

The base pay range for this position is $160,000 to $190,000 per year. Actual compensation is based on market location and may vary depending on job-related knowledge, skills, and experience. We also offer a competitive package of benefits including paid time off, sick time, company holidays, parental leave, medical/dental/vision insurance, life insurance, disability insurance, and 401(k) to regular full-time employees. Certain roles may also be eligible for bonus and equity.

Interview Prep

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Key Skills

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Preferred:

Practice Questions

💡Technical Questions (3)
  • 1.How do you approach designing a story mission that leverages open-world systems to create a dynamic, unpredictable experience rather than a linear, scripted sequence?
  • 2.Can you walk me through your process for aligning a mission's design vision with the overarching narrative and thematic goals of the game?
  • 3.What is your approach to hands-on implementation in Unreal Engine, and how do you balance staying in the trenches with your high-level leadership responsibilities?
🎯Behavioral Questions (3)
  • 1.Tell me about a time you led a multi-disciplinary team through a challenging mission design that required significant iteration to get right.
  • 2.Describe a situation where you had to push the boundaries of traditional mission design to innovate, despite potential technical or organizational pushback.
  • 3.Give an example of how you mentored a mission designer who was struggling to balance open-world player freedom with critical story path requirements.
🧩Situational Questions (2)
  • 1.You are working with a co-development partner on a major side mission arc, but their latest deliverable feels completely disconnected from your game's narrative themes and open-world mechanics. How do you handle this?
  • 2.Your team has designed a critical path mission that tests brilliantly for gameplay, but the narrative team insists the story beats feel rushed and emotionally unearned. How do you resolve this conflict?

Resume Keywords

Make sure these keywords appear on your resume

Mission DesignOpen WorldNarrative DesignLeadershipUnreal EngineCo-developmentPlayer ExperiencePrototypingCross-functionalGameplay Iteration

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