Electronic Arts

Job Title: Lead Systems Designer – Player Progression & Reward Systems (Apex Legends) 

Location: Los Angeles CA, Vancouver BC, Madison WI

Work Model: Hybrid

Respawn Entertainment

Founded in 2010, Respawn was created with the philosophy that when talented people have creative freedom, they’ll make extraordinary games that achieve the unexpected. Respawn Entertainment is the Academy Award-winning studio behind Apex Legends, Titanfall, and Star Wars™ Jedi titles. Join us to help shape the future of one of the world’s leading live service franchises.

Respawn Entertainment is looking for a passionate and experienced Lead Systems Designer to shape and evolve the player progression and reward ecosystems of Apex Legends. In this role, you will help define experiences that motivate, delight, and retain players throughout their journey in the Apex Games - balancing fun, fairness, and long-term engagement in a live service context. You will work closely with design, UX, product management, analytics, and engineering partners to drive systems that elevate the Apex Legends franchise.

As a Lead Systems Designer reporting to the Senior Systems Director, you will focus on defining, implementing, tuning, and iterating on progression paths, reward loops, economy frameworks, and engagement mechanics that resonate with Apex Legends players across platforms. Your work will ensure our systems are both player-centric and built for scale within a fast-moving live service environment. You will be based onsite in one of our studio locations (e.g., Los Angeles, Vancouver, Madison) and partner cross functionally to deliver world-class game experiences.

Responsibilities 

• Own the design and iteration of player progression and reward systems, including leveling, challenges, and long-term engagement loops

• Create high-level documentation that clarifies the vision and goals of various systems and how they interact with other parts of the game

• Write detailed design documents that fuels implementation and fully works out the nuances of progression systems

• Create progression system models in tools like Excel, Google Sheets, or languages like Python to iterate on and balance complex and interconnected systems

• Partner with cross-functional teams to build, ship, and scale player-centric systems that support key game goals

• Use data, player insights, and live performance to inform decisions and continuously improve system outcomes

• Communicate designs, goals, and trade-offs clearly while advocating for player-first, high-quality experiences

Qualifications 

• 10+ years of systems design experience on live service games, with demonstrable work on progression and/or reward systems

• Strong collaboration skills and experience communicating design intent to cross-disciplinary teams

• Deep understanding of live service engagement loops, player motivation models, and meta-progression frameworks

• Expertise in game progression and the under the hood work drives it

• Experience leveraging analytics and player feedback to iterate and improve system outcomes

• Ability to create high-quality design documents and prototypes that clearly articulate goals, success metrics, and implementation assumptions

• Passion for competitive and live service games, especially Apex Legends and similar titles

• Competitive multiplayer experience

• Familiarity with balancing economies, player retention mechanics, or incentive structures

• Experience with scripting, data tools, or technical implementation that enables rapid prototyping and iteration of systems