What are the responsibilities and job description for the Associate Balance Designer position at Kabam?
At Kabam, we’re constantly raising the bar of excellence in free-to-play gaming. We hire for passion and diversity so that we can triumph in our collective skill. Our teams are made up of a fusion of personalities and interests bound together by a collaborative nature, fun-loving culture, and a drive to do what it takes to make great games. And this is where you come in…
The key function of the Associate Balance Designer role is in supporting the fine-tuning and optimisation of the gameplay experience to ensure that the game’s mechanics, systems, and content are well-balanced, providing players with engaging and enjoyable gameplay while maintaining fairness and competitive integrity.
This role is a full-time, on-site position based 5 days a week at our Downtown Vancouver studio.
\n- Collaborate with senior designers to analyze and evaluate various gameplay elements, such as character abilities, item stats, level difficulty, and economy mechanics, to ensure a well-balanced and fair experience for players.
- Collaborate with the development team to adjust and fine-tune gameplay parameters based on player feedback and data analysis.
- Conduct playtesting sessions and gather feedback to identify potential balance issues.
- Create and maintain documentation detailing balance changes and reasoning for future reference.
- Utilize gameplay data and player behavior analysis to identify trends, imbalances, and areas for improvement.
- Collaborate with data analysts to draw insights and implement data-driven balance changes.
- Partner with various team members, such as systems, quest, RPG, and economy design team to contribute to balancing across all areas during development of new systems or features.
- Leverage the skills and expertise of the entire team to ensure balanced game experience for players.
- Collaborate with the live operations team to plan and execute regular balance updates, events, and patches.
- Address and resolve urgent balance issues that may arise during live operations.
- Effectively communicate balance changes and reasoning to the development team, stakeholders, and the player community.
- Bachelor’s Degree or equivalent experience with an emphasis on game design.
- 1 years of game design experience on commercially successful properties.
- Familiarity with RPG, BCG, and action genres on mobile, PC, console, and pen-and-paper platforms.
- Considerable experience with Marvel Contest of Champions’ economy, gameplay and social features is a must! (aka, play the game!).
- Rock-solid organizational skills with the ability to juggle multiple priorities.
- Excellent communication skills, including documentation and presentation.
- Familiarity with Microsoft Excel and related spreadsheet software.
- A strong desire to make the best games in the world alongside others that share your motivation.
- Extended Health Coverage: effective day one, no waiting period! Our benefits cover health, dental, life, disability, and extended paramedical services such as vision care, mental health practitioners, massage, physiotherapy, acupuncture, and much more.
- DEIB Benefits: DEIB is important to us and to our people - that’s why our benefits include gender-affirming care, fertility care, and other hormonal treatments and drugs.
- Flexible Spending Accounts: our benefits are built on a flex credit model, so you’re able to choose the coverage levels that are right for you, and allocate the rest to a group RRSP/TFSA, Health Spending account, and/or Personal Spending Account.
- RRSP Matching: everyone retires eventually, and we help our people save for their futures with a contribution matching program once you reach 90 days with us.
- Commuter Benefit: we believe in the power of in-person collaboration, and want to support you in making it work for you! We provide a flexible, monthly cash allowance to help cover the costs of transit, parking, or even personal logistics like childcare and pet care.
- PTO and Parental Leave: we offer paid parental leave, flexible paid time off, paid time off for volunteering, sick leave, and holiday closures.
- Employee and Family Assistance Program: this program provides crisis management support, immediate mental health care, and generalized support for emotional, mental, and financial well-being.
- Telus Virtual Health: we provide increased access to remote healthcare providers for prescription refills or referrals from the comfort of your home.
- Learning and growth: We encourage people to grow both personally and professionally, and support this through regular lunch & learns and an education stipend.
- Pay transparency: We share with employees the pay range their role falls within and clear career maps to determine how they can grow within their role or level-up to a promotion.
- Cool spaces: Our offices are in Vancouver, Montreal, Los Angeles, and San Francisco. Whether it’s summers on the rooftop patio in Downtown Vancouver, or watching the fireworks in Montreal’s South Shore - we want our people to feel like their time spent in office is worthwhile!
- Giving back: Kabammers have a dedicated paid day off every year to volunteer to a cause close to their hearts. Some teams even band together for group volunteer days off-site!
The typical hiring range listed above is specific to candidates located in Vancouver. The salary will be determined based on your knowledge, skills and competencies, and you’ll have room to grow after you join!
If you’re interested in the position but your expectations don’t fully align with the provided range, we still encourage you to apply! Considerations may be made based on your experience level.
Excited by this opportunity? Kabam is dedicated to growing our diverse and inclusive workforce, so if your past experience doesn’t perfectly match the listed requirements we encourage you to apply anyways - you could be a great fit for this or other positions.
We invite you to apply now and start the conversation with us. Together, we can create and support some of the best games ever made and entertain the world!
About Kabam
Kabam is a world leader in developing entertaining, immersive, and highly social multiplayer games, bringing high-quality graphics, next-generation technology, and revolutionary gameplay to players around the world.
Kabam’s games, Marvel Contest of Champions, Shop Titans, and more have generated hundreds of millions of downloads and have received multiple awards including Apple’s Editor’s Choice and Google Play’s Best Game of the Year.
Founded in 2006, Kabam has studios and offices in Vancouver & Montreal in Canada, and Los Angeles & San Francisco in the United States. Kabam is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Netmarble Games.
Kabam is an Equal Employment Opportunity employer committed to building a diverse and equitable workplace, and inclusive environment for all existing and potential employees. Employment decisions are based on candidate qualifications and business need, not race, color, ancestry, place of origin, age, sex (including pregnancy), gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, political belief, religion, creed, marital or family status, medical condition, genetic information, physical or mental disability, military or veteran status, prior criminal conviction or any other protected class in accordance with federal, state or provincial and local laws and ordinances. Accommodations will be provided as requested by candidates taking part in all aspects of the selection process.
Salary : $64,160 - $72,000