2K’s Cat Daddy studio, based in Kirkland, Washington, was started 25+ years ago by industry veterans and is now a wholly owned subsidiary of Take-Two Interactive within the 2K Label. The studio is a fun, dedicated family of incredibly hardworking game developers. We have shipped games on almost every genre and platform, with a current focus on mobile games.
What We Need:
Cat Daddy is seeking a Technical Designer to join our team of artists, engineers, and product managers to design, prototype, and ship features for free-to-play mobile games. This role sits between design and engineering. You will carry a feature from the first pitch through to the live build: writing the spec, standing up the prototype in Unity, wiring it into the services that run our games, and tuning it once players are inside it. The ideal candidate has shipped multiple F2P mobile games in a design or technical design role.
This is an in-office position, located in Kirkland, WA. Must be able to work onsite 4 days a week.
What You Will Do:
Design new gameplay experiences including limited-time events, complete game modes, and mini-games that add variety and excitement to the core game loop.
Own features end to end, from the pitch through a working prototype, the shipped build, and the live tuning pass that follows.
Write specs that hold up as executable instructions: clear intent, explicit constraints, acceptance criteria, edge cases, and the failure states that separate a good build from a plausible one.
Build, orchestrate, and refine agentic workflows across the design pipeline, covering research, competitive teardowns, spec drafting, prototype scaffolding, balance sweeps, content authoring, and telemetry analysis.
Prototype directly in Unity so a concept can be played, and validated against live service systems.
Collaborate with cross-functional teams to balance fun, difficulty, and monetization across your designs.
Who We Think Will Be A Great Fit:
5+ years of game design experience, with a focus on free-to-play mobile games, plus a Bachelor's degree in a related field and/or comparable, relevant work experience.
Deep, hands-on practice with agentic tooling and workflows, used daily rather than demoed occasionally.
Fluency in the craft that makes those workflows work: context and prompt construction, task decomposition, tool and permission design, checkpointing, evaluation harnesses, and honest measurement of quality over time.
Production experience in Unity building mobile games.
Expert-level understanding of the mobile game market from a game design perspective, including game economies, data analysis, back-end environments, and live infrastructure.
Practical understanding of game development pipelines end to end.
World-class communication skills, with proven ability to produce effective design documentation, and a great teammate who can collaborate with engineers and artists on game development.
The pay range for this position in Kirkland, WA at the start of employment is expected to be between $88,700 and $131,300 per year. However, base pay offered is based on market location, and may vary further depending on individualized factors for job candidates, such as job-related knowledge, skills, experience, and other objective business considerations.
Subject to those same considerations, the total compensation package for this position may also include other elements, including a bonus and/or equity awards and eligibility to participate in our 401(K) plan and Employee Stock Purchase Program.
Regular, full-time employees are also eligible for a range of benefits at the Company, including: medical, dental, vision, and basic life insurance coverage; 14 paid holidays per calendar year; paid vacation time per calendar year (ranging from 15 to 25 days) or eligibility to participate in the Company’s discretionary time off program; up to 10 paid sick days per calendar year; paid parental and compassionate leave; wellbeing programs for mental health and other wellness support; family planning support through Maven; commuter benefits; and reimbursements for fitness-related expenses.
If hired, employee will be in an "at-will position" and the company reserves the right to modify base salary (as well as any other discretionary payment or compensation or benefit program) at any time, including for reasons related to individual performance, company or individual department/team performance, and market factors.
At Cat Daddy, we believe diversity of experience is fundamental to crafting accessible and fun gaming experiences for all of our players. We encourage everyone to consider being a part of our team.
We are an equal opportunity employer. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, national origin, sex, gender, gender expression, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, or disability status. We will ensure that individuals with disabilities are provided reasonable accommodation to participate in the job application or interview process, to perform essential job functions, and to receive other benefits and privileges of employment. Please contact us to request accommodation.
Please note that Cat Daddy is unable to provide visa sponsorship or assistance for this position. All candidates must be legally authorized to work in United States without requiring current or future employer sponsorship.
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Skills Required
- 5+ years of game design experience focused on free-to-play mobile games
- Bachelor's degree in a related field or comparable relevant work experience
- Deep hands-on experience with agentic tooling and workflows
- Expertise in context and prompt construction, task decomposition, tool and permission design, checkpointing, evaluation harnesses, and quality measurement
- Production experience building mobile games in Unity
- Expert understanding of the mobile game market, game economies, data analysis, backend environments, and live infrastructure
- Practical understanding of end-to-end game development pipelines
- World-class communication and design documentation skills
- Ability to collaborate effectively with engineers and artists
- Ability to work onsite in Kirkland, Washington four days per week
- Authorization to work in the United States without current or future employer sponsorship
What We Do
What's with the name? Way before Harley Howe and Patrick Wilkinson formed Cat Daddy Games 20 years ago, a much younger Harley was exposed to the perils of falling trees at a family-owned timber company. In those days, it wasn't uncommon for a cut tree to get stuck on other trees as it crashed towards the ground. Harley learned that the only way to get these trees all the way down was with a "cat daddy," a man who literally climbed up stuck trees, chopped off the limbs, and then rushed down the tree as it plummeted towards the earth. The longer Harley spent with these guys, the more he realized that cat daddys were almost solely responsible for all the random acts of brilliant stupidity happening out in the woods. And so ... Cat daddys left quite the impression on Harley, so when Pat and Harley started their company, it seemed fitting that Cat Daddy Games be the name. They were going against convention and playing it loose, creating adventurous games on a variety of emerging platforms without a safety net. Like a way geekier version of real cat daddys. Pat and Harley's relationship grew and grew with multiple successful PC titles released and in 2003 they were purchased by Take-Two Interactive. With this they moved into console and delivered the Carnival Games franchise. As the industry changes so does their focus. They are now currently plugging away on mobile and VR games with some nice upcoming titles soon to be released.
