Lead UX Designer

SkyRocket Studios is the team within Big Fish responsible for creating chart topping casual and midcore mobile games like Fairway Solitaire, Fairway Solitaire Blast, Dungeon Boss and Cascade. Our internal game studio in Seattle is looking for an awesome Lead UX Designer to join our team and work on one of our most successful casual titles. You will be working closely with other UX Designers, Game Design, Research, Product, Engineering and Art to craft the best mobile user experiences in the industry. You should be a strong leader and manager, and come prepared with extensive industry knowledge in UX, Management Information Systems, and have a fascination for the mobile free-to- play game experience.

* Work closely with the team to scope features, define requirements, and set realistic goals within an agile environment * Get your hands dirty! Produce sketches, mind maps, flow charts, wireframes, prototypes, mockups, and design specs * Unleash your design expertise to create highly engaging, delightful experiences that connect with players on an emotional level * Collaborate with teammates (game designers, art leads, product managers, producers, engineers, and QA) to iterate on the functionality, flow, layout, content, and look of the game * Tune existing features and create the UX design for new and evolving features while maintaining a high level view of the user experience of the whole product. * Create user interface wireframes and user flows, ensuring that iterative feedback is incorporated into the software application and game development process * Drive the human-computer interaction direction and discover opportunities for further research * Design experiments aimed at discovering innovative solutions in user experience design * As Lead User Experience Designer, you’ll work with other UX designers, Game Designers and Studio Art Director to shape our overall UX strategy * You’ll collaborate with your fellow UX designers to build best practices backed by meticulous research * Mentor and guide your UX team on interdisciplinary projects to establish a holistic, consistent player experience on their projects * Use your collaborative nature to build relationships with stakeholders throughout the company, establishing a strong UX vision and evangelizing player experience design. * Push UX boundaries by exploring the latest emerging trends, through independent research and share that information with your team * Define and implement standards that help the company create a consistent, quality experience for its players across all game products * Facilitate the UX design process within cross-functional teams, including software engineers and product managers, in order to resolve business and user experience issues * Drive awareness and advocate the importance of human-computer interaction challenges and opportunities, user feedback, journey mapping and data-driven decisions in designing the end-to-end user experience. * Manage individual contributors by mentoring and supporting career growth and education, perform reviews and one on ones meetings to maintain strong communication and awareness * Participate in higher level meetings with other team leads to share learnings, facilitate project scheduling and create assignments and task distribution and tracking * Responsible for communicating UX pipeline during new team member on-boarding, and cascading high level business and process directives to team members * Play and analyze games in all genres

**Skills, experience and educational requirements:** * You have a player-first attitude and use a combination of research and your understanding of gamer culture to empathize with players and develop strategies and best practices tailored to their needs * Thorough knowledge of wireframe production, process flows, journey mapping, system architecture, business process auditing, design and implementation * Fluent in UX best practices and have the critical thinking skills to know when it’s time to break them in favor of something different for a purpose. * Excellent understanding of game navigation and common UI patterns as they relate to engagement and monetization in the Mobile space. * Exceptional Leadership abilities. Leads by example and regularly exhibits a positive attitude and demonstrates a passion for excellence * Able to balance a wide range of concurrent responsibilities while being level headed and priority focused. * Mentors others in areas of specialization while striving to learn and grow through collaboration with others and outside sources/organizations * Proficiency in Adobe Creative Suite and UI prototyping software * Proficiency in mobile game engines including Unity and Cocos is preferred * Experience in designing interfaces for mobile and other platforms (iPhone, iPad, Android, PC, Facebook) is preferred * A team player, open to critiques from all disciplines, and not afraid to share your ideas * Continuously learning, constantly seeking opportunities to experiment, fail fast, optimize workflows and foster open communication * Excellent written and oral communication skills- Proactive and straightforward. * A curious and critical thinker, able to articulate complex ideas with humility (and a healthy dose of humor) * Independent, organized yet flexible, and able to prioritize effectively without losing sight of the big picture * Fascinated by games, especially mobile free to play, and the ways in which this growing genre continues to change and evolve. **Experience and Education:** * College degree in Art, Animation, Design, Human Computer Interaction, or Management Information Systems * 7+ years as a user experience designer with some focus on mobile preferred but not mandatory * 3+ years as a project lead preferred * 1+ years of people management **Nice to Have:** * Avid gamer and mobile app enthusiast * Experience with CCG/ RPG style games a plus! * Experience in social game production, game merchandising and messaging a plus * Experience in SCRUM/Agile production methodologies