Game developer Jobs in Orange, CA

Game Director - Hearthstone | Irvine, CA

Pull up a chair and join us by the hearth! Blizzard is looking for a Game Director to join the Hearthstone leadership team. Hearthstone continues to reach millions of players worldwide and has delivered as one of Blizzard's flagship live-service titles for 12 years running. In this role, you will be joining a veteran leadership team that is united by a passion for card games and player-first development. As Blizzard invests in the next decade and beyond for Hearthstone, we are adding a Game Director to help shape what Hearthstone becomes for millions of players around the world. This role is an opportunity to steward one of gaming's most beloved strategy franchises while helping define its future across competitive play, social experiences, live operations, and new ways for players to engage with Hearthstone.

This added leadership role will own the game's near-term creative, gameplay, and live-service direction, while partnering closely with Hearthstone's senior game director and the rest of Hearthstone's senior leadership on the long-term strategy for Hearthstone's future. The role spans Hearthstone's constructed card game formats, Battlegrounds, and live operations initiatives, helping shape both the immediate player experience and the ongoing evolution of Hearthstone. You will help set the creative and strategic direction for a game that has delighted players for over a decade, ensuring it continues to surprise, entertain, and evolve for many years to come.

We are looking for a strategic, player-focused design leader who brings deep live-service leadership experience, strong genre-relevant judgment, and the ability to align teams around a compelling vision. As Game Director, you will help translate player needs, business opportunities, and creative ambition into durable priorities and clear direction. The ideal candidate thrives in collaborative environments, develops creative talent, communicates effectively with senior stakeholders, and holds a high bar for quality while championing the player at every step.

This role offers a flexible hybrid work week, with a mix of remote and on-site days. While hybrid is the standard arrangement, you're also welcome to work on site full-time if you prefer. The home studio for this role is in Irvine, CA.

Responsibilities

• Define and evolve the vision and direction for the live game, including delivering best-in-class gameplay, supporting a healthy metagame, and driving ongoing improvements to the player experience.
• Provide strategic leadership across Hearthstone's major game experiences, aligning creative, player, and business goals while helping establish priorities across content, systems, and live-service initiatives.
• Champion quality in the delivery of fun and engaging card sets, providing actionable feedback and roadblock removal necessary for the design team to deliver on quality targets and business objectives.
• Partner closely with product management, user research, telemetry & data science, marketing, and other key stakeholders to translate player insights, business objectives, and market opportunities into actionable game direction and priorities.
• Drive cross-disciplinary working groups with clear goals, holding implementation of content releases and sophisticated systems accountable to a core vision and quality bar with kindness and candor.
• Represent Hearthstone's creative vision with senior Blizzard leadership, communicating strategic plans, performance insights, risks, and opportunities while helping drive alignment across the broader organization.
• Develop an understanding of the game's community to identify common points of friction and opportunities to deliver improvements to the overall player experience.
• Monitor the state of the game through player feedback, community sentiment, user research, telemetry, and business performance data to inform strategic direction and prioritization.
• Establish and maintain a creative environment, fostering a culture of experimentation, accountability, and success.
• Cultivate the skills of those working with you, constantly finding opportunities to help them improve their craft.

Minimum Requirements

• 12+ years of professional game design experience, with at least 4 years in a senior leadership, director-level, or comparable role within the gaming industry.
• Professional genre-relevant experience with competitive PvP strategy games and large-scale live-service titles.
• Demonstrated success leading a live-service game with recurring content releases, player feedback loops, data-informed iteration, and long-term player engagement goals.
• Proven ability to lead, grow, and inspire design teams, championing design craft while collaborating effectively with cross-functional teams.
• Deep understanding of "games as service" and the live-service loop, especially through the lens of free-to-play games.
• Exceptional ability to influence and align diverse stakeholder groups, including executive leadership, product, publishing, marketing, user research, and analytics teams.
• Strong project management skills and ability to maintain a strategic vision.
• Being an advocate for simple, intuitive, and future-proof design, confident in speaking up or giving voice to dissenting opinions with clarity and respect.
• Commitment to creating a safe space for collaboration, communication, and creativity across all subject areas and departments.

Extra Points

• Passion for and professional experience with trading card games (TCGs) or collectible card games (CCGs).
• Previous professional experience working in AAA game engines (e.g., Unreal, Unity, etc.).
• A background in math, content design, economy design, or live ops.
• Strong documentation philosophies and strategies to evangelize your designs.
• Familiarity with user experience and user interface design principles.
• Active player of a variety of titles, especially mobile turn-based strategy games and collectible card games.
• Enthusiastic and knowledgeable about Hearthstone.