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Description
Hybrid requirements: This role has flexible working patterns.
We’re tombola, the UK’s biggest online bingo site, and we pride ourselves on building all our amazing games right here in-house. We’re on the hunt for a talented and inspiring Game Design Lead to join our fantastic Game Studio team in Sunderland. This isn’t just about managing projects; it’s about leading the charge, setting the direction, and helping us scale our capacity for even more incredible gaming experiences!
What will you be doing?
As our Game Lead, you’ll have a pivotal role in shaping the future of our gaming experiences. You’ll lead truly collaborative teams, influence our technical direction, and ensure we continue to deliver top-notch, engaging games to millions of players every day. It’s a chance to make a massive impact in a company that values innovation, creativity, and a genuinely great place to work.
You’ll be the driving force behind our game development journey, guiding our expert squads (development, animation, and test) to bring their best work to life. You’ll be:
Leading the Way: Taking ownership of the entire game delivery process, from initial concept right through to release.
Team Champion: Creating an inclusive, motivating environment where innovation thrives and solutions blossom.
Guiding Growth: Coaching and supporting our squad leads to help them (and their teams!) develop their leadership and technical skills.
Player-Focused: Collaborating closely with our Product Management team to ensure we’re always delivering maximum value to our players.
Strategic Thinker: Balancing workloads with production capacity, ensuring our priorities are always aligned with business goals.
Architectural Advocate: Leading the charge on game development architecture and finding clever technical solutions.
Talent Spotter: Helping us find and recruit the brilliant minds we need to keep growing and innovating.
Experience:
Proven experience in building, leading, developing, and managing people.
An in-depth understanding of gameplay creation and optimisation techniques.
That crucial commercial awareness to balance business needs with development desires.
A track record of creating polished game products, with an eye for exceptional UX.
Understanding of animation technologies (their benefits and trade-offs).
Knowledge of platform and browser limitations – you know what makes things tick!
Bonus experience:
Experience with Pixi/Typescript.
Knowledge of iOS & Android app development.
What do we offer?
We champion a culture of inclusivity, flexibility, personal development, and mental wellbeing!
As well as a salary that will be more than agreeable for you, we offer market leading benefits such as quarterly bonus, tombola merch, free breakfast and lunches in the office, private healthcare, hybrid working and much more.We champion a culture of inclusivity, flexibility, personal development, and mental wellbeing!
As well as a salary that will be more than agreeable for you, we offer market leading benefits such as quarterly bonus, tombola merch, free breakfast and lunches in the office, private healthcare, hybrid working and much more.
Life at
Tombola
Culture overview
We’re ambitious, we’re growing quickly and we’re looking for awesome people to join our already awesome team. #tombolalife is a lot of fun - we take pride in what we do, we work hard and we work together. We’re excited about the future and the team that will make an impact.
Employee benefits
Bonus Scheme
Cycle To Work
Flexible Working
Free Food
Free Parking
Gym Membership
Laptop
Learning Allowance
Life Insurance
Pension
Private Healthcare
Office vibe
City Centre
Friday Drinks
Hackathons
Open Plan
Social Events
Location
Tech at
Tombola
Leadership
James Conway
Director of Technology
Tech overview
Tombola is one of the rare gaming operators with a fully cloud-native stack, running on AWS to deliver “infinite” scalability and cutting-edge performance across multiple European territories.
At Tombola, we're not just another player in the game; we're the creators of the game. Our approach is revolutionary – we craft every element of our software in-house, from concept to execution. We take pride in the ingenuity of our developers and designers, united by their passion for pushing boundaries and shaping the future.
Engineering principles
Agile Process
Code Reviews
Communication and collaboration
Continuous delivery
Continuous Development
Continuous integration
Knowledge sharing
Mentoring
Micro services
Pair programming
Rapid release cycles
Test Driven Development
Unit testing
Company tech stack
Java
Node.js
iOS
AWS
Windows
Linux
Vue.Js
Bash
JavaScript
HTML5
C#
PowerShell
ASP.Net
TypeScript
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