As a
Technical Level Designer, you will create worlds and sandboxes filled with opportunities to play. You are a level designer by craft, with the technical skills to build gameplay features in Unreal Engine using Blueprints and/or C++.
You will create new world affordances: gameplay verbs, activities, challenges, and interactions that invite players to experiment and engage with their surroundings. You will prototype, validate, iterate on, and deliver these features, then use them to build levels that encourage exploration, problem-solving, and memorable multiplayer moments.
A Day In The Life:- Rapidly prototype and validate new gameplay verbs, activities, and environmental interactions in Unreal Engine for online multiplayer.
- Build and refine levels using the mechanics and tools you create alongside existing systems, hazards, and enemies.
- Playtest with the team to understand how players discover and use these affordances, then refine levels and features to encourage experimentation and memorable moments.
What You'll Do:- Own the design, implementation, debugging, polish, and maintenance of interactive world features and environmental gameplay toys that offer new choices, challenges, and benefits. Creature and NPC behaviors are outside this role.
- Build levels from blockout through delivery, shaping flow, pacing, navigation, and readability across exploration, puzzles, traversal, and encounters.
- Create reusable, configurable gameplay components and tools that help designers build and iterate on levels efficiently.
- Rapidly prototype and playtest ideas to validate their potential, refine features, and manage scope and complexity.
- Collaborate across disciplines to align with design direction, integrate player abilities and creature encounters, and meet technical requirements.
- Partner with Engineering to resolve performance issues and ensure reliable multiplayer behavior.
- Keep implementations organized and document features and tools so the team can use, tune, and maintain them.
What You'll Bring:- Strong level design fundamentals in spatial composition, flow, pacing, and player guidance for open-world exploration and multiplayer play.
- At least one shipped game as a level designer on a multidisciplinary team.
- Proficiency in Unreal Engine Blueprints and/or C++, with the ability to independently prototype, implement, and debug gameplay features.
- Experience building levels and authoring collision and navigation in Unreal Engine.
- Strong playtesting and iteration habits, with an understanding of how design shapes player behavior, cooperation, and relationships.
- Clear communication, strong collaboration, and the judgment to work independently, recognize constraints, and seek support when needed.
Nice to Have:- Experience building reusable level design tools, modular gameplay kits, or procedural workflows in Unreal Engine.
- Experience designing systemic puzzles, physics-based interactions, or environmental features that support multiple solutions and emergent multiplayer play.
- Experience profiling and optimizing gameplay scripts and level content.
The Team:- This role reports to the Design Manager.
Our Interview Process(all interviews are 1 hour video calls on Google Meet unless otherwise noted)
- Step 1: People Operations Introduction
- Step 2: Hiring Manager Interview
- Step 3: Panel Interview (3 - 1 Hour Sections)
- Step 4: Gardeners Debrief
- Step 5: Offer
Gardens Offers:- Competitive salaries and pay transparency
- Stock options
- Medical, dental, and vision coverage (100% for individuals, 90% for dependents)
- Life insurance, short-term and long-term disability, and additional benefits
- 401(k) contributions (U.S.) / RRSP + DPSP contributions (Canada)
- Paid parental leave
- A fully distributed remote studio across North American time zones
Benefits and perks listed may vary depending on the nature of your employment with Gardens and the country in which you work.
Physical Requirements: This is a primarily sedentary, remote role requiring the ability to remain stationary and perform computer-based work for extended periods, including sustained use of monitors, keyboards, mice, and game controllers for a minimum of six hours per day. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable qualified individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions of the role. Gardens is committed to providing reasonable accommodations for qualified individuals with disabilities.
Encouragement: We believe that diverse perspectives make our team stronger and our games better. If you're excited about this role but don't meet every single qualification, we encourage you to apply anyway.
Research consistently shows that talented people, particularly women, people of color, and those from historically underrepresented communities are less likely to apply unless they meet every listed requirement. We care far more about curiosity, growth, and a willingness to learn than checking every box.
