Designer, Life Skills

Level; Austin (TX); On-site; USD 90,000 - 120,000; Full time

Job summary

Level is a learning technology company creating game-led, narrative-driven experiences to teach life skills. You will design lessons from a pedagogical brief, drive the game loop, story, characters, and mechanics that engage kids while achieving learning goals.

The role blends hands-on design with AI-driven prototyping and fast iteration on a startup team. You will write scripts, define systems, and ensure the module ships true to intent, collaborating closely with learning designers and

Qualifications

• Experience in narrative design, game design, or interactive storytelling, including writing scripts or dialogue.
• A strong product and creative sense for kid-focused experiences.
• Integrative thinking to blend learning goals, story, and mechanics.
• Track record of rapid prototyping with frontier AI models.
• Experience collaborating with partners from other disciplines.
• Ability to carry a design from pitch to shipped module at startup pace.
• Enthusiasm for change and evolving formats.

Responsibilities

• Design lessons from pedagogical briefs, pitching game loops, stories, characters, and mechanics that make kids want to play while achieving learning goals.
• Prototype with AI as the primary medium and iterate to readiness for technical design.
• Write scripts and define mechanics, ensuring implementation stays true to design.
• Maintain creative coherence across a module in terms of mechanics and story.
• Brief art and audio on required assets and evaluate AI-generated versus hand-made work.
• Drive playtest and classroom findings, implementing changes as needed.
• Experiment with new AI workflows and extend craft to future projects.

Skills

Narrative design

Game design

Interactive storytelling

Prototyping with AI

Scripting/dialogue writing

Integrative thinking

Design iteration

Cross-functional collaboration

Job description

Level is a learning technology company dedicated to helping students build academic and life skills with confidence and joy. We combine research-grounded curriculum principles with world-class interactive design to make meaningful practice something students want to come back to, not something they struggle through.

We support what teachers, schools, and parents are already doing by increasing student engagement with high-quality, standards-aligned practice that reinforces classroom learning. That's why we're building:

For students: Rewarding and motivating learning experiences that meet students where they are to build academic proficiency.

For educators: Tools that fit naturally into instruction and help students stay engaged while reducing teacher workload.

For parents: Activities that help kids catch up or get ahead, build confidence, and minimize homework battles, whether learning at school or at home.

We are committed to helping every person maximize their potential and live a life of meaning. It's a difficult problem that requires brilliant people and tremendous effort over time.

Designer to create our game-led, narrative-driven experiences that effectively teach skills. You'll take a high-level concept of how to teach a life skill and drive the game loop, story, characters, and mechanics that define the lesson, from first designs to prototypes. We hold a high bar for pedagogical rigor, and believe engagement cannot be secondary. Your job is to carry both into every lesson design. AI is your primary tool. You'll get playable prototypes in front of the team and kids fast, then carry the design through iteration to a shipped module that is still recognizably what you set out to make.

This is a hands-on role on a fast-moving team: half designing, half building. We're building this from scratch, which means pitching before you're certain, putting rough work in front of people early, and learning as we go.

What You Will Do:

• Design lessons with our learning designers. Start from their pedagogical brief and pitch the game loop, story, characters, and mechanics that make kids want to play, while effectively teaching students. You own the experience, they own the learning goal, and you solve for both together.

• Prototype with AI as your primary medium. Get a playable version in front of the learning designer, the team, and kids fast, and iterate until the design is ready for technical design to refine.

• Write the scripts and define the mechanics, systems, and interaction design. Own that implementation stays true to intention through to a shipped module. Flag early what won't work in practice.

• Hold creative coherence across a module: mechanics consistent with each other, story consistent with its world, and the build true to the design’s intent.

• Brief art and audio on what each piece of the experience needs, and judge where AI-generated assets are good enough and where hand‑made work is needed.

• Drive implementation of playtest and classroom findings. Sit in on sessions, make the changes yourself where you can, and elevate what needs a design or cross‑team decision.

• Proactively experiment with new AI workflows, staying current on frontier model capabilities.

• Extend the craft and tooling built in module work to new projects, formats, and experiments as they arise.

Qualifications

Need to Have:

• Experience in narrative design, game design, or interactive storytelling, whether professionally, independently, or both, including writing scripts or dialogue.

• A strong product and creative sense. In practice, this means an understanding of how to create a fun and compelling experience for kids: what they play, watch, and share, and why.

• Integrative thinking. You can hold a learning goal, a story, and a mechanic in one design, and make the constraint the engine of the fun rather than a tax on it.

• A track record of rapid prototyping with frontier AI models. You can take existing tools and content and quickly shape them toward a specific experience, and you turn repeated work into repeatable workflows. The bar is practical fluency, not engineering expertise.

• Experience designing with partners from other disciplines while still exercising your own creative judgment.

• Ability to carry a design from pitch to shipped module, holding a high quality bar at startup pace.

• Enthusiasm for change. Our formats and methods evolve quickly, and you see each shift as a new design problem to solve.

Nice to Have:

• Experience making games, shows, or content for kids.

• Background in human development, learning science, social emotional learning, or life skills.

• Experience with playtesting or user research.

• Animation or motion design experience.

• Experience working alongside art, animation, or audio teams.

• A portfolio or work samples demonstrating game design, interactive content, animation, learning design, or AI-assisted production work (please include a link with your application).