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Blizzard Entertainment · 8 hours ago

Associate Design Director

Irvine, CA

Full-time

Hybrid

Director/Executive

$124K/yr - $230K/yr

10+ years exp

Blizzard Entertainment is a leading interactive entertainment company known for its iconic franchises. They are seeking an Associate Design Director to lead the creative direction for Diablo Immortal, focusing on gameplay systems, story content, and player experience while collaborating with cross-functional teams.

MMO GamesSoftwareVideo Games

H1B Sponsor Likely

Responsibilities

Set, evolve, and communicate the creative vision for core gameplay systems, content, and economy/balance while ensuring alignment with Diablo Immortal’s long-term goals

Lead the “what’s next” strategy for a 3-year-old live mobile game by identifying the most impactful opportunities for meaningful change

Create a coherent design strategy that tightly connects systems design, content design needs

Balance the expectations and gameplay preferences of both Western and Eastern audiences, ensuring a globally resonant player experience

Clearly articulate the value of high-quality design for partners and leadership, building alignment and driving decisions that improve player impact

Lead, mentor, and grow design teams with a positive, open, and collaborative mindset

Instruct, influence, and coach design partners to raise the bar for design craft across the product

Provide clear direction while embracing shared ownership — setting the vision without requiring total control over implementation

Collaborate deeply with art, engineering, product, narrative, and other partners to deliver cohesive, high-quality gameplay

Oversee dungeon, class, and systems design, leveraging data, player feedback, and intuition to drive engagement, retention, and monetization

Champion iterative development, generating insights that elevate design quality and execution

Prioritize ruthlessly — identifying the most critical design elements that move the product forward

Utilize analytics and player-behavior data to inform gameplay improvements and optimize core combat and systems

Communicate complex and abstract design concepts using the right tools — documentation, visualizations, prototypes, presentations — tailored to each audience

Influence partners through clarity, rationale, and player-focused storytelling

Qualification

Game design experienceLive-service mobile titlesMentor teamsData-informed designDiablo franchise knowledgeCross-disciplinary communicationCollaboration skills

Required

10+ years of game design experience, including 3+ years in a senior leadership role (Lead Designer, Associate Game Director, or equivalent)

Demonstrated success operating live-service mobile titles, ideally within action or RPG genres

Proven ability to lead and mentor design teams (10+ designers)

Highly analytical and fluent in data-informed design, with a strong ability to translate insights into impactful decisions

Exceptional cross-disciplinary communication and collaboration skills with co-dev partners, be able to convey complex or abstract ideas clearly

Deep knowledge of the Diablo franchise and action RPG design principles

Benefits

Medical, dental, vision, health savings account or health reimbursement account, healthcare spending accounts, dependent care spending accounts, life and AD&D insurance, disability insurance

401(k) with Company match, tuition reimbursement, charitable donation matching

Paid holidays and vacation, paid sick time, floating holidays, compassion and bereavement leaves, parental leave

Mental health & wellbeing programs, fitness programs, free and discounted games, and a variety of other voluntary benefit programs like supplemental life & disability, legal service, ID protection, rental insurance, and others

If the Company requires that you move geographic locations for the job, then you may also be eligible for relocation assistance

Company

Blizzard Entertainment

Glassdoor3.5

Blizzard Entertainment develops and publishes gaming software and computer games such as World of Warcraft, Hearthstone and StarCraft.

Founded in 1991

Irvine, California, USA

1001-5000 employees

http://blizzard.com

H1B Sponsorship

Blizzard Entertainment has a track record of offering H1B sponsorships. Please note that this does not guarantee sponsorship for this specific role. Below presents additional info for your reference. (Data Powered by US Department of Labor)

Distribution of Different Job Fields Receiving Sponsorship

Represents job field similar to this job

Trends of Total Sponsorships

2025 (60)

2024 (58)

2023 (46)

2022 (51)

2021 (38)

2020 (41)