Game Scout

Hired by Lera; United States; Remote; USD 70,000 - 100,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Fully remote

Conference trips

Growth opportunities

Direct impact

Job summary

Hired by Lera is seeking a Game Scout to identify promising indie titles and studios. You will assess market reception and commercial potential, acting as the primary contact during evaluations. After signing, a producer takes the lead, while you stay close to the process to spot signals from teams.

You will leverage market data like SteamDB and wishlists, build analytics tools, and represent the company at events. Growth into BD and partnerships is possible as you prove your impact.

Qualifications

• Real feel for today's indie market and ability to explain why something will or won't sell.
• Experience in publishing, marketing, production, BD or scouting in games.
• Hands-on use of market data (SteamDB, wishlists) to back up opinions.
• Passionate indie gamer who plays new releases weekly.
• Reliability: follows up, closes loops and keeps promises.
• Excellent communication with developers and stakeholders.
• Able to defend recommendations with reason, even for modest potential.
• Working English and CET ±2 hours time zone.

Responsibilities

• Scout new games and dev teams for the publishing pipeline.
• Manage the internal pitches database and keep conversations moving.
• Build and maintain analytics tools for the pitch process.
• Represent the company at events like Gamescom, IGN Fan Fest, BitSummit, IndieDevDay.
• Optionally grow into BD: platforms and vendors; pursue major partnerships.

Skills

Market intuition

Business experience in games

Data-driven decisions

Indie gamer weekly

Reliability

Developer communication

Advocacy for recommendations

English speaking

Job description

An indie games publisher with a portfolio of successful indie-titles and 500K+ copies sold across PC and consoles is looking for a Game Scout. The team specializes in systemic, endlessly replayable games and has a track record of spotting hits early, often before the wishlists show it.

About the publisher

This is a hands-on publisher. The team works side by side with developers on demos, playtests, visual direction, and trailers, and turns promising projects into games players find and stick with. They judge a game by its design and potential, so they're comfortable signing projects early, while wishlists are still modest, whenever they believe in what they see. The portfolio shows it pays off:

• $10M+ earned on Steam, with almost 14,000 player reviews, about 89% of them positive.

• ~250K wishlists across upcoming titles, one of which gained tens of thousands of wishlists over a single playtest weekend.

• Players who stay: the median playtime on their biggest hit is 13 hours, and on another title 7% of players have logged 50+ hours.

Behind it all is a small, distributed team led by industry veterans. They rely on analytics and AI tools and keep things practical: if something won't help a specific game, they don't do it. The structure is flat, so you'll work directly with the co-founders, and your calls will shape what gets signed.

The role

You'll be the person who finds the next game this team signs. You'll scout new games and studios, assess how well each could be received by players and its commercial potential, and act as the main point of contact for developers during evaluation. Once a game is signed, a producer takes the lead, but you stay close to the team. You built the relationship, so you're often the first to notice when a team is struggling, and the person they trust to talk it through.

What you'll do

• Scout new games and dev teams for the publishing pipeline.

• Manage the internal database of pitches and keep conversations with developers moving.

• Build and maintain analytics tools that make the pitch pipeline smarter.

• Represent the company at events like Gamescom, IGN Fan Fest, BitSummit, IndieDevDay, etc.

• Optionally, grow into business development: key distribution platforms and vendors at first, and over time, bigger platform partnerships if that excites you.

What we're looking for

• A real feel for today's indie market: you can tell fresh from derivative and say out loud why something will or won't sell, beyond "it looks cool".

• Experience on the business side of games, such as publishing, marketing, production, BD or scouting. Founding or running your own studio counts too, whatever the outcome.

• Hands-on use of market data like SteamDB and wishlists to back up your opinions.

• A passionate indie gamer who plays new releases every week and genuinely enjoys it.

• Reliability: you follow up, close loops, and keep your word.

• You're easy to talk to: developers enjoy working with you and trust you.

• You can stand behind your recommendations and explain the reasoning, even when you're championing a game with modest commercial potential but real creative value.

• Working English and a time zone within CET ± 2 hours.

Nice to have

• Previous scouting experience at a publisher.

• Your own network of indie developers.

• A soft spot for strategy, simulation, and other systemic genres.

• Having lived through at least one big launch success and one painful flop.

• Interest in BD and contacts with platforms, key distributors or vendors.

• Experience representing a company at conferences and shows.

• Wide curiosity: you read, watch and play all sorts of things.

What's in it for you

• Flexible hours and fully remote work.

• Paid trips to gaming conferences and events, plus occasional team get-togethers.

• High ownership and direct impact on what gets signed.

• Real growth: grow into owning scouting end-to-end, or into a scout/BD hybrid with major partnerships.

• Transparent communication and decision-making.

• A results-oriented culture where experiments are encouraged and mistakes are part of progress.

Hiring process

1. A quick intro with Lera, the recruiter partnering on this search. It can be a 30-min call, or a few questions by message if you'd rather move straight to the next step.

2. A short video questionnaire (at a time that suits you). This is our chance to get to know you as a player: what you play, what excites you in indie right now, and how you think and talk about games.

3. An interview with one of the co-founders.

4. A final interview with the team.

5. Offer

Once you're in the process, you'll hear back within 3 business days at every stage.