LEAD GAME DESIGNER, CARD DESIGNKoin Games is seeking an experienced Lead Card Designer to own and manage the entire card design process for our new-school collectible card game. This is a hands-on leadership role: you’ll be designing cards, and will also be responsible for ensuring the card team’s work is clear, balanced, and shipped at the highest quality and on time.
You will partner with the Head of Design to shape our card design roadmap, manage day-to-day execution, and collaborate across disciplines to ensure smooth integration of card content into the game. You’ll oversee card ideation, playtesting, balancing, and polish, while keeping the team aligned with our design vision and standards.
If you have top-tier competitive card game experience, proven leadership skills, and the ability to guide a small, talented team toward operational excellence, we want to hear from you.

Duties & Responsibilities

• Own and manage the card design pipeline from end to end, including playtesting, balancing, and polish.
• Collaborate with the CPO to build & maintain the card design roadmap aligned with project goals.
• Coordinate with other departments (art, engineering, production, QA) to ensure smooth execution and delivery of card content.
• Lead and mentor the card design team, including a senior card designer, to ensure clarity of direction, quality of execution, and timely delivery.
• Ideate, design, and iterate cards, archetypes, and mechanics that offer fun, balanced, and synergistic play.
• Use data, player feedback, and meta analysis to identify balance issues & opportunities for improvement.
• Facilitate and oversee structured playtests, ensuring actionable feedback is documented and acted upon.
• Maintain high standards for clarity, usability, and thematic cohesion in card designs.

Required skills and experience

• 5+ years of professional game design experience, including at least 2 years in a lead or senior role overseeing content design or balance.
• Proven success in competitive card games at a high tier (Legend in Hearthstone, Master in Legends of Runeterra, Mythic in MTG Arena, Infinite in Marvel Snap).
• Demonstrated ability to manage a content pipeline, from design through cross-discipline delivery.
• Strong leadership, organizational, and communication skills — able to clearly convey priorities and feedback to multiple stakeholders.
• Deep understanding of how competitive card game metas evolve with the introduction of new cards, mechanics, and synergies.
• Experience implementing content using scripting or game engines.
• Ability to balance hands-on design work with team leadership and cross-team coordination.
• Mentorship experience in a small-team environment.

Bonus Skills:

• Experience running structured playtesting processes.
• Familiarity with statistics, analytics, and balance tuning tools.
• Understanding of player psychology and retention drivers.
• Ability to create compelling thematic card concepts and flavor.

The ideal candidate will

• Thrive in creative and organizational spaces, both designing great cards and managing the process.
• Proactively communicate progress, risks, and needs to the team and other departments.
• Set and maintain a high bar for design quality and clarity.
• Bring a collaborative, no-ego approach to leadership, while holding the team accountable to shared goals.
• Love competitive card games and stays current with trends, meta shifts, and player expectations.

Duties & Responsibilities

• Own and manage the card design pipeline from end to end, including playtesting, balancing, and polish.
• Collaborate with the CPO to build & maintain the card design roadmap aligned with project goals.
• Coordinate with other departments (art, engineering, production, QA) to ensure smooth execution and delivery of card content.
• Lead and mentor the card design team, including a senior card designer, to ensure clarity of direction, quality of execution, and timely delivery.
• Ideate, design, and iterate cards, archetypes, and mechanics that offer fun, balanced, and synergistic play.
• Use data, player feedback, and meta analysis to identify balance issues & opportunities for improvement.
• Facilitate and oversee structured playtests, ensuring actionable feedback is documented and acted upon.
• Maintain high standards for clarity, usability, and thematic cohesion in card designs

Below you’ll find an outline of the interview plan for this role. Please note that while this is what we expect the process to look like; we may ask you for supplemental information or require an additional step before making a final decision.

• 30 min interview with our Talent Acquisition Lead
• 60 min interview with the Hiring Manager and Team
• Design test
• Final interview with the Executive Team
• Reference calls & a background chec