Lead UI/UX Designer

Who We Are:

At NaturalMotion, we make games that wow people. We innovate to create previously impossible experiences that would not exist without us. We take pride in making titles that reach a large audience and creating communities that last. Our commitment to excellence has earned us recognition as one of the UK's Best Places to Work in games for eight consecutive years by gamesindustry.biz, and we're proud to be part of the Zynga and Take-Two Interactive family.

Position Overview:

NaturalMotion Games are looking for a talented and visionary Lead UI/UX Designer to help shape the player experience for an exciting, unannounced mobile title. This role focuses on steering the end-to-end UX and UI vision, managing a talented design team, and overseeing the entire creative process from early conceptual wireframes to final technical implementation in Unreal Engine.

You will own the interface and user flows for our current unannounced project, and future titles, coordinating closely with the Art Director, Design Director, and Product Managers to ensure our UI is visually stunning, accessible, and perfectly aligned with core gameplay pillars. As a live-service game, you will champion futureproof, highly scalable UX design systems and leverage player data and frequent testing to constantly iterate and elevate the user experience during live operations.

We are looking for an experienced leader with shipped titles under their belt, a deep mastery of mobile live-ops methodologies, and a genuine passion for mentoring internal and external talent to build a versatile, world-class design team.

We embrace a hybrid work environment. Within this role you will work 2 days per week in our London office and the remaining days at home.

What You'll Do:

UX Vision

• Lead UX vision for Hacienda and future projects within the studio. Including creating and giving feedback on wireframes, prototypes and design briefs as well as presenting the UX vision to the team and external stakeholders.
• Oversee the design process from concept to implementation, ensuring high standards of quality both in early wireframe and technical implementation in Unreal Engine.
• Collaborate with product managers, developers, and other stakeholders to create cohesive and user-friendly designs.
• Utilize data and frequent testing to confirm the effectiveness of UX flows and continue to find areas of improvement throughout development and live operations.
• Develop and maintain design guidelines, standards, and best practices for the team to follow.
• Stay updated with industry trends and incorporate new design techniques and tools.
• Has strong leadership, creativity, and a deep understanding of user experience and interface design principles.

UI Vision

• Work alongside the Art Director to ensure UI art style is appealing, accessible and matches the overall Art style of the game.
• Accountable for executing the UI style at quality across all platforms.
• Support Marketing and rendering in presentation.

Design Expertise

• Collaborate with Design Director to ensure UX aligns with Design pillars and vision.
• Guide development of features and systems using deep UX/UI knowledge.
• Ensure design cohesion and best practices across the team, and communicate them via documentation, presentations, feature reviews and mentoring.
• Ensure efficient, futureproof systems that are built on component re-use rather than bespoke assets and screens.
• Review and provide feedback on UX systems, features, and UI art and provide guidance to other leaders and designers.

Management

• Lead and manage a team of UI/UX designers both internal and external, providing guidance and mentorship.
• Ensure team members are on track on their career path, including mentoring, regular one to one’s and creating development plans.
• Impart your experience and methods to the team, and leverage their own strengths and backgrounds to build a versatile team capable of tackling any challenge.

What You'll Bring:

• An experienced UX Lead/Manager/Director with shipped titles under your belt.
• Experience in Mobile development, in particular supporting live-operations, rapid iteration, and agile development.
• Experience of live-service design methodologies and building a living game for a large community of players.
• Deeply familiarity with what it takes to develop and ship a live-service title on time and at quality.
• Mastery of design systems, workflows, and process.
• Excellent verbal and visual communication skills.

What We Offer You:

• Competitive salary and discretionary annual bonus scheme
• 26 days holiday, plus bank holidays & 2 paid personal days
• 6 months fully paid maternity/adoption leave and 16 weeks fully paid paternity leave (eligibility criteria applies)
• Pension plan, with a double matching employer contribution
• Private medical & dental insurance and healthcare cash plan
• Life insurance, personal accident insurance and income protection
• Mental health and neurodiversity support programs
• Company Employee Stock Purchase Plan (eligibility criteria applies)
• Fitness reimbursement plan, worth £600 per annum
• Flexible working hours
• Weekly happy hours, seasonal parties and monthly social events
• Annual rail season ticket advance and cycle to work scheme

#LI-Hybrid

We are proud to be an equal opportunity employer, which means we are committed to creating and celebrating diverse thoughts, cultures, and backgrounds throughout our organization. Employment with us is based on substantive ability, objective qualifications, and work ethic – not an individual’s race, creed, color, religion, sex or gender, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, national origin or ancestry, alienage or citizenship status, physical or mental disability, pregnancy, age, genetic information, veteran status, marital status, status as a victim of domestic violence or sex offenses, reproductive health decision, or any other characteristics protected by applicable law.

As an equal opportunity employer, we are committed to providing the necessary support and accommodation to qualified individuals with disabilities, health conditions, or impairments (subject to any local qualifying requirements) to ensure their full participation in the job application or interview process. Please contact us at accommodationrequest@zynga.com to request any accommodations or for support related to your application for an open position.

Please be aware that Zynga does not conduct job interviews or make job offers over third-party messaging apps such as Telegram, WhatsApp, or others. Zynga also does not engage in any financial exchanges during the recruitment or onboarding process, and will never ask a candidate for their personal or financial information over an app or other unofficial chat channel. Any attempt to do so may be the result of a scamp or phishing attack, and you should not engage. Zynga’s in-house recruitment team will only contact individuals through their official Company email addresses (i.e., via a zynga.com, take2games.com, naturalmotion.com, smallgiantgames.com, themavens.com, gram.gs email domain).

An experienced UX Lead/Manager/Director with shipped titles under your belt. Experience in Mobile development, in particular supporting live-operations, rapid iteration, and agile development. Experience of live-service design methodologies and building a living game for a large community of players. Deeply familiarity with what it takes to develop and ship a live-service title on time and at quality. Mastery of design systems, workflows, and process. Excellent verbal and visual communication skills.