The Senior Director, Game Design & Bid Management is responsible for the strategic leadership, performance, and growth of the Design Department while owning the studio’s new business bid development function. This role serves as a key member of the studio leadership team and is accountable for building and maintaining a world-class Design organization, ensuring design excellence across all projects, and leading the development of competitive, achievable, and commercially successful proposals for new business opportunities.
The position partners closely with Executive Leadership, Business Development, Account Management, PMO, Talent Management, and Development teams to align departmental capabilities, client needs, business objectives, and delivery strategies. The Senior Director acts as a senior client-facing leader during pre-sales activities (and at times during larger projects), ensuring proposed solutions accurately reflect the studio’s capabilities, quality standards, and operational realities.
Resposibilities:
Department Leadership
Department Strategy & Vision
- Define and execute the long-term vision, strategy, and goals of the Design Department.
- Align departmental priorities with company objectives, market trends, client needs, and future business opportunities.
- Drive continuous improvement initiatives that increase department effectiveness, scalability, quality, and operational excellence.
- Establish and monitor departmental KPIs and organizational health metrics.
Organizational Development
- Develop and maintain an effective organizational structure consisting of Directors, Leads, Subject Matter Experts, and individual contributors.
- Ensure appropriate expertise coverage across all design disciplines.
- Evaluate organizational effectiveness and implement structural improvements as the department grows.
- Lead succession planning and leadership development initiatives.
People Leadership
- Directly manage Design Directors, Associate Directors, and senior design leaders.
- Define career development frameworks, performance expectations, and growth opportunities.
- Provide coaching, mentorship, and leadership development support.
- Partner with Talent Management to support hiring, workforce planning, retention, and succession strategies.
- Proactively address engagement, performance, retention, and organizational risks.
Culture & Communication
- Foster a culture of creativity, collaboration, accountability, and continuous learning.
- Host regular department meetings to communicate strategy, priorities, organizational updates, and business objectives.
- Promote knowledge sharing through workshops, presentations, mentoring, and communities of practice.
- Create an inclusive environment that supports innovation, professional growth, and high performance.
Design Excellence & Project Oversight
Design Quality Leadership
- Provide executive oversight for game design development across all projects.
- Establish review mechanisms, quality benchmarks, and governance practices that promote consistency across teams and projects.
- Support Design Directors and Leads in resolving complex design challenges and maintaining delivery excellence.
Resource & Workforce Planning
- Maintain accountability for department-level workforce planning and staffing recommendations.
- Balance utilization, capability development, succession planning, and project needs.
- Review and approve strategic staffing recommendations for major engagements.
Bid Management & New Business Leadership
Bid Ownership
- Own the end-to-end bid development process for all new business opportunities.
- Serve as the primary point of accountability for proposal quality, consistency, and submission readiness.
- Partner with Business Development, Account Management, and Executive Leadership on bid/no-bid decisions.
- Ensure proposals align with client requirements, business objectives, studio capabilities, and profitability targets.
Solution Development
- Lead the development of project solutions, delivery approaches, staffing models, team structures, timelines, and engagement strategies.
- Collaborate with Design, Art, Engineering, Production, QA, and PMO leadership to create comprehensive and achievable proposals.
- Ensure proposed solutions accurately reflect project scope, risks, dependencies, and resource requirements.
- Balance competitiveness, quality, feasibility, and commercial performance across all proposals.
Estimation Leadership
- Lead estimation activities for all new business opportunities.
- Establish estimation methodologies, standards, templates, and governance processes.
- Review and validate assumptions related to staffing, schedules, budgets, scope, dependencies, and delivery strategies.
- Continuously improve estimation quality and forecasting accuracy across the organization.
Client Presentations & Proposal Support
- Participate in client discovery sessions to understand project goals, requirements, constraints, and success criteria.
- Lead or support proposal presentations, workshops, and solution reviews.
- Present design approaches, delivery strategies, staffing models, and production methodologies to prospective clients.
- Build client confidence through expertise, preparation, and clear communication.
- Support and coach department leaders in client-facing activities.
- Remain an escalation POC for accounts in the capacity of Executive Producer after a project kick-off.
Bid Governance & Continuous Improvement
- Establish and maintain bid management processes, proposal standards, templates, and best practices.
- Coordinate contributions from all departments involved in proposal development.
- Ensure proposals are delivered on time and meet quality expectations.
- Analyze proposal outcomes and implement improvements to increase win rates, estimation accuracy, and proposal effectiveness.
Standards, Processes & Capability Development
Governance & Best Practices
- Establish, maintain, and evolve department standards, methodologies, and best practices.
- Drive consistency in design reviews, documentation, estimation practices, proposal development, and delivery planning.
- Audit workflows and processes to improve effectiveness, quality, and scalability.
- Ensure design and development frameworks are appropriately adapted to project and client needs.
Training & Capability Development
- Define and execute the department’s learning and development strategy.
- Identify current and future skill requirements across design disciplines.
- Establish training programs, mentorship initiatives, and professional development opportunities.
- Promote continuous improvement in design craft, communication, leadership, and industry expertise.
Requirements
Required
- 10+ years of experience in game development, including significant experience in game design leadership.
- 5+ years leading large multidisciplinary teams or departments.
- Experience working within AAA, co-development, external development, or live-service environments.
- Proven success managing client relationships and supporting business development activities.
- Experience leading estimation, proposal development, or bid management efforts.
- Strong understanding of game design disciplines, production methodologies, and development pipelines.
- Demonstrated ability to lead organizational growth, strategic planning, and change management initiatives.
- Exceptional communication, presentation, negotiation, and stakeholder management skills.
Preferred
- Experience working with multiple international publishers and development partners.
- Experience leading large-scale RFP responses and proposal development activities.
- Experience managing globally distributed teams.
- Experience building scalable organizations across multiple projects and genres.
- Experience developing estimation frameworks and bid management processes.
- Promote continuous improvement in design craft, communication, leadership, and industry expertise.
Success Measures
Department Leadership
- Employee engagement and retention.
- Leadership development and succession readiness.
- Department utilization and organizational effectiveness.
- Achievement of departmental strategic objectives.
Design Excellence
- Design quality across projects.
- Client satisfaction and partner retention.
- Successful project delivery outcomes.
- Adoption and effectiveness of department standards and methodologies.
Bid Management & Business Growth
- Proposal win rate.
- Revenue generated from supported opportunities.
- Proposal quality and on-time submission rate.
- Estimation accuracy and forecast reliability.
- Margin performance against proposal assumptions.
- Alignment between proposal commitments and project execution outcomes.
- Contribution to studio growth and new business acquisition.
50% Department Leader
- Design strategy
- People management
- Quality
- Capability development
50% Head of Solutions / Bid Director
- New business opportunities
- Estimation
- Proposal creation
- Client pitches
Benefits
- Competitive remuneration
- Projects aligned with your expertise and interests
- Collaboration with industry leaders on AAA titles
- Professional growth opportunities
- Flexible work arrangements
- An environment dedicated to diversity and inclusion
