Niantic is seeking an expert, hard-working Lead UX Designer to build and innovate on the next generation of location-based gaming. Can you craft compelling gameplay experiences to delight players and keep them engaged? As a Lead UX Designer at Niantic, you will be responsible for helping define the way players directly experience our games now, and in the future. Our teams are structured to allow everyone to be a major contributor, so you will have a significant voice in crafting the game you are helping design, build, and deliver to players. You would become part of an exceptional team creating innovative and delightful mobile and AR games. Our creative departments and executive management have extensive experience shipping critically and commercially successful AAA+ titles across a wide range of platforms and genres and are now bringing that experience to AR and mobile gaming. This role is not eligible for immigration sponsorship.

Responsibilities

• Spearhead concepts and the development of functional UX designs for game features.
• Create personas, user stories, journey maps, flowcharts, wireframes, and prototypes to communicate designs decisions to other team members.
• Champion excellent UX design throughout the development process, including accessibility and inclusive, player-centered design.
• Lead in usability tests and UX research to help refine and tune the game to meet product goals.
• Collaborate closely with a cross-functional team of game designers, engineers, artists, and producers to deliver extraordinary gameplay experiences.
• Develop and maintain UX specifications and style guides.
• Collaborate with cross-functional team members and stakeholders to cultivate strong working relationships with project team members, including regular and reliable attendance and participation in meetings.

Qualifications

• A deep understanding of visual design concepts and challenges for mobile and other emerging platforms.
• Experience shipping at least 3 games or products; mobile or AR/XR preferred.
• Experience working with Figma or similar UX visual prototyping workflows.
• Experience collaborating with leaders of other fields.
• A portfolio demonstrating 5 or more years of UI/UX experience working in interactive media and/or mobile games.
• Ability to work in a fast-paced hybrid environment and handle stress appropriately and/or ability to solve practical problems and be sufficiently adaptable to handle dynamic situations with little advance notice.
• Experience working on cross-functional teams with ability to communicate effectively through written and verbal communications, including synchronous interactions with others.

Plus If...

• A college degree in a related field.
• Experience working on geo-location based products.
• Experience with technical implementation, huge plus if in Unity.
• Knowledge of products in competitive areas in similar genres to Niantic’s portfolio.

Join the Niantic team!

Niantic is the world’s leading AR technology company, sparking creative and engaging journeys in the real world. Our products inspire outdoor exploration, exercise, and meaningful social interaction. 

Originally formed at Google in 2011, we became an independent company in 2015 with a strong group of investors including Nintendo, The Pokémon Company, and Alsop Louie Partners. Our current consumer titles include pioneering global-control game Ingress, record-breaking AR game Pokémon GO, and Pikmin Bloom. In November 2021, we launched our developer platform, Lightship, enabling creators to build immersive AR experiences around the globe. Niantic is an Equal Opportunity employer. 

We believe that cultivating a workplace where our people are supported and included is essential to creating great products our community will love. Our mission emphasizes seeking and hiring diverse voices, including those who are traditionally underrepresented in the technology industry, and we consider this to be one of the most important values we hold close.

Niantic is a hybrid first company. We believe that in person interaction and collaboration is good for Niantic’s culture, and critical to our future success as a company. We support flexibility and know new ways of working are here to stay. 

We’re a hard-working, fun, and exciting group who value intellectual curiosity and a passion for problem-solving! We have growing offices located in San Francisco, Sunnyvale, Bellevue, Los Angeles, New York, London, Tokyo, Hamburg, and Zurich. #LI-HYBRID