Remote MMO Design Director: Lead Scalable World and Live Ops

Jagex: The RuneScape Company; Cambridge; Hybrid; GBP 120,000 - 180,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Private Healthcare

Pension contributions

Employee assistance programme & onsite

Life Insurance

Discretionary annual bonus

Flexible working hours

25 days annual leave + Bank holidays

Job summary

Jagex: The RuneScape Company seeks an experienced Design Director to own and shape the MMO design across progression, economy, content, social systems, and live operations for RS4. You will lead a growing Design team, partnering with the Creative Director, Production, and Engineering to deliver a scalable, enduring RuneScape experience.

You'll translate the Creative Director's pillars into a coherent MMO framework, drive design standards, and ensure long-term player engagement.

Qualifications

• Extensive MMO or persistent online world design experience.
• Senior design leadership on at least one shipped MMO.
• Ability to translate a Creative Director's vision into a coherent MMO design framework.
• Deep MMO systems expertise across progression, economy, content, social systems, and endgame.
• Experience leading and mentoring a sizeable multidisciplinary design organisation.
• Strong understanding of Unreal Engine or AAA development environments.

Responsibilities

• Translate the Creative Director's vision into a coherent, scalable MMO experience.
• Own MMO design architecture for progression, combat, economy, content, social systems, endgame, and live ops.
• Set design strategy and standards, establishing principles and quality bars across the project.
• Lead the Design team, guiding Leads and senior designers with clear ownership.
• Design for longevity, ensuring systems/content sustain years of progression and live development.
• Collaborate with Creative, Production, Engineering, UX, Analytics, and others to ensure scalable designs.
• Use playtesting, telemetry and feedback to identify problems and evolve the experience.
• Address MMO-specific risks like economy health, progression balance, content velocity, and exploits.

Skills

MMO design leadership

Design team leadership

Live operations

Telemetry-driven design

Content progression systems

Economy balance

Creative collaboration

Tools

Unreal Engine

AAA game development tools

Job description

Jagex: The RuneScape Company seeks an experienced Design Director to own and shape the MMO design across progression, economy, content, social systems, and live operations for RS4. You will lead a growing Design team, partnering with the Creative Director, Production, and Engineering to deliver a scalable, enduring RuneScape experience.

You'll translate the Creative Director's pillars into a coherent MMO framework, drive design standards, and ensure long-term player engagement.