Game Designer

At Subject, we're building the Netflix of Education. Personalized. Localized. Accredited. Backed by Owl Ventures, Kleiner Perkins, and industry leaders, and serving 100K+ students, we're building the world's most advanced Learning Intelligence System: studio-quality, standards-aligned learning that is delivered personally and proves outcomes.

The Impact

As a Game Designer at Subject, you own how learning actually feels for students. You design the systems that turn standards-aligned content into experiences students choose to come back to: the loops, the rewards, the progression, the moment-to-moment feel. Subject is not adding gamification on top of a worksheet. We are building learning experiences that hold their own against the best games students play outside school. Your work is the difference between a student opening Subject because they have to and opening it because they want to. You report into the Design Director and partner directly with product, engineering, and content.
What You'll Own

Core Loop and Systems Design

Design the core student loops across Subject: how a learning session starts, escalates, rewards, and ends
Build the progression systems, mastery feedback, and meta-game that keep students engaged across days, weeks, and units
Tune difficulty, pacing, and challenge curves so students feel the right amount of stretch at every level
Define the economy of points, streaks, unlocks, and achievements with intent. No empty extrinsic loops
Mechanics and Moment-to-Moment Feel

Design the moment-to-moment interactions: how a question feels to answer, how a wrong answer is handled, how a win is celebrated
Specify motion, sound, haptics, and feedback in enough detail that engineers and designers ship exactly what you intended
Prototype mechanics quickly with paper, Figma, code, or off-the-shelf engines and put them in front of real students
Hold the bar on feel: if it does not feel good in a student's hand, it does not ship
Learning and Engagement Integration

Partner with Product and Curriculum to translate learning objectives into game systems without compromising rigour
Work with the AI team on personalized difficulty, adaptive challenges, and AI-driven narrative or character moments
Define the metrics that prove a system is working: retention, session length, mastery, time‑on‑task with intent, return rate
Run playtests with real students in partner schools and feed insights back into design
Cross‑functional Build

Write tight design docs that product builders and engineers can execute against without ambiguity
Work and ship alongside engineers, designers, and content specialists
Brief support, GTM, and educator success on the why behind each system so the field can speak to it
Track outcomes after launch and iterate
Requirements

5+ years of game design experience on shipped consumer products. Mobile, web, or console
A portfolio with at least one title that demonstrates strong systems design, progression, and player retention
Deep understanding of core loops, meta‑game, economy design, and player psychology
Hands‑on prototyping skills: Figma, Unity, Godot, web, or whatever lets you put a working mechanic in someone's hand fast
Comfortable with data: you can define what success looks like, read a dashboard, and change course based on what you find
Clear writer: your design docs are readable, your rationale is tight, your stakeholder updates don't require translation
Bonus: experience in AI‑native products
The Mindset We Need

Studio‑quality bar: you hold craft and outcomes together. Fun systems that don't teach are not enough, and effective systems that aren't fun are not enough either
Full ownership: you feel the weight of the systems you ship. You don't hand off, you ship
Speed with taste: you prototype fast, iterate in the open, and don't let perfect be the enemy of shipped‑and‑learning
Student obsession: you watch students play, you know what makes them lean in and what makes them quit
AI‑native operator: you already use Claude Code, Cursor, or equivalent daily. AI is in your workflow, not on your wishlist
The Commitment We're Looking For

This role requires exceptional dedication because students deserve our absolute best. We need someone who:
Lives the mission and treats student and district outcomes as real stakes
Thrives in intensity and takes pride in building something from nothing
Works with presence: Los Angeles office, 5 days/week
Can commit to 60 hours/week: this is a high‑output, high‑ownership role and the pace reflects the ambition
We're not looking for people who tolerate long hours. We're looking for people who find meaning in building something that matters this much.
Compensation

$150,000 to $160,000
Benefits

Premium health coverage, gym membership, daily meals, top hardware
Join Us

If you want to design the learning systems students actually choose to come back to, Subject is where you do that work.

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