Senior Product Designer - Games

Mattel • El Segundo, CA

10h • Hybrid

About The Position

Mattel is seeking an imaginative, highly skilled Senior Product Designer to create new play experiences across its games portfolio, including UNO, Pictionary, Scrabble, Phase 10, Skip-Bo, Blokus, and KerPlunk!. This hands-on role develops physical products from early concepts through commercialization, using strong ideas, thoughtful mechanics, rapid prototyping, meaningful playtesting, and continued refinement to create intuitive, engaging products.

The designer works across Design, Marketing, Engineering, Consumer Insights, Packaging, Licensing, and Operations. The role combines gameplay innovation with industrial and product design, balancing creativity with manufacturing feasibility, quality, cost, and sustainability. It also involves presenting concepts, contributing to critiques, supporting junior designers, managing multiple projects, and improving design workflows and practices.

The position is in-office Monday through Thursday, with work from home on Fridays. The annual pay range is $95,000–$119,000; base pay depends on work location, skills, and experience.

Requirements

• At least 4 years of experience in game design, toy design, industrial design, consumer product design, or a closely related field, with demonstrated experience developing physical products.
• Experience designing tabletop, card, party, strategy, family, or adjacent play experiences, with a strong understanding of engaging gameplay.
• Demonstrated experience in ideation, prototyping, playtesting, iteration, and product development from concept through production.
• Strong industrial design fundamentals, including sketching, form development, prototyping, visualization, and 3D design tools.
• Understanding of consumer product development, materials, manufacturing processes, tooling, and production constraints.
• Ability to translate complex ideas into clear, compelling concepts and presentations.
• Strong collaboration, communication, organization, and problem-solving skills.
• Curiosity about how and why people play, and a passion for creating products that bring people together.

Nice To Haves

• Experience shipping commercially successful tabletop, card, or family games.
• Experience facilitating structured playtesting or working with consumer research.
• Experience working across licensed entertainment brands or global product development organizations.
• Familiarity with modern tabletop gaming trends, mechanics, and player communities.
• A genuine love of games and play, such as inventing mechanics, hosting game nights, collecting modern board games, or exploring why games work.

Responsibilities

• Design and develop new gameplay experiences across family, party, strategy, and card games.
• Take projects from early concept exploration through prototyping, playtesting, refinement, and final product execution.
• Apply game design principles, player psychology, consumer insights, and an understanding of player behavior to create engaging, accessible experiences.
• Build and test prototypes quickly, using playtesting and consumer feedback to improve mechanics, pacing, accessibility, and player experience.
• Evolve established brands and contribute original ideas for new ways to play.
• Translate gameplay into intuitive physical products, components, and interactions.
• Develop design solutions using sketching, model making, CAD, rendering, prototyping, and other visualization tools.
• Work with Engineering and Packaging to balance creativity with manufacturing feasibility, quality, cost, and sustainability.
• Make considered decisions about materials, component design, ergonomics, visual hierarchy, tactile interaction, and product experience.
• Review prototypes and production samples to preserve design intent and gameplay integrity through manufacturing.
• Collaborate with internal teams and external development partners across relevant disciplines.
• Present concepts and design rationale clearly, using visual storytelling to build alignment and move work forward.
• Participate in design critiques, provide constructive feedback, and incorporate input to strengthen work.
• Share knowledge and techniques with junior designers to support the quality of team thinking and execution.
• Manage multiple projects and priorities at different development stages while maintaining high creative standards.
• Identify design challenges early, develop practical solutions, and make informed tradeoffs throughout development.
• Contribute to the evolution of design tools, workflows, and best practices that support iteration and collaboration.

Benefits

• Competitive total pay programs
• Comprehensive benefits
• Resources to support employee growth and potential
• Flexible work model: in-office Monday through Thursday and work from home on Fridays

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Senior
• Education Level: No Education Listed