# Senior Director, Game Design & Bid Management > Sperasoft · Bucharest, Romania (Hybrid) · Full-time · Posted 2026-06-18 **Workplace:** hybrid **Department:** AMC ## Description **The Senior Director, Game Design & Bid Management** is responsible for the strategic leadership, performance, and growth of the Design Department while owning the studio’s new business bid development function. This role serves as a key member of the studio leadership team and is accountable for building and maintaining a world-class Design organization, ensuring design excellence across all projects, and leading the development of competitive, achievable, and commercially successful proposals for new business opportunities. The position partners closely with **Executive Leadership, Business Development, Account Management, PMO, Talent Management, and Development** teams to align departmental capabilities, client needs, business objectives, and delivery strategies. The Senior Director acts as a senior client-facing leader during pre-sales activities (and at times during larger projects), ensuring proposed solutions accurately reflect the studio’s capabilities, quality standards, and operational realities. ### **Resposibilities:** ### Department Leadership **Department Strategy & Vision** - Define and execute the long-term vision, strategy, and goals of the Design Department. - Align departmental priorities with company objectives, market trends, client needs, and future business opportunities. - Drive continuous improvement initiatives that increase department effectiveness, scalability, quality, and operational excellence. - Establish and monitor departmental KPIs and organizational health metrics. **Organizational Development** - Develop and maintain an effective organizational structure consisting of Directors, Leads, Subject Matter Experts, and individual contributors. - Ensure appropriate expertise coverage across all design disciplines. - Evaluate organizational effectiveness and implement structural improvements as the department grows. - Lead succession planning and leadership development initiatives. **People Leadership** - Directly manage Design Directors, Associate Directors, and senior design leaders. - Define career development frameworks, performance expectations, and growth opportunities. - Provide coaching, mentorship, and leadership development support. - Partner with Talent Management to support hiring, workforce planning, retention, and succession strategies. - Proactively address engagement, performance, retention, and organizational risks. **Culture & Communication** - Foster a culture of creativity, collaboration, accountability, and continuous learning. - Host regular department meetings to communicate strategy, priorities, organizational updates, and business objectives. - Promote knowledge sharing through workshops, presentations, mentoring, and communities of practice. - Create an inclusive environment that supports innovation, professional growth, and high performance. ### Design Excellence & Project Oversight **Design Quality Leadership** - Provide executive oversight for game design development across all projects. - Establish review mechanisms, quality benchmarks, and governance practices that promote consistency across teams and projects. - Support Design Directors and Leads in resolving complex design challenges and maintaining delivery excellence. **Resource & Workforce Planning** - Maintain accountability for department-level workforce planning and staffing recommendations. - Balance utilization, capability development, succession planning, and project needs. - Review and approve strategic staffing recommendations for major engagements. ### Bid Management & New Business Leadership **Bid Ownership** - Own the end-to-end bid development process for all new business opportunities. - Serve as the primary point of accountability for proposal quality, consistency, and submission readiness. - Partner with Business Development, Account Management, and Executive Leadership on bid/no-bid decisions. - Ensure proposals align with client requirements, business objectives, studio capabilities, and profitability targets. **Solution Development** - Lead the development of project solutions, delivery approaches, staffing models, team structures, timelines, and engagement strategies. - Collaborate with Design, Art, Engineering, Production, QA, and PMO leadership to create comprehensive and achievable proposals. - Ensure proposed solutions accurately reflect project scope, risks, dependencies, and resource requirements. - Balance competitiveness, quality, feasibility, and commercial performance across all proposals. **Estimation Leadership** - Lead estimation activities for all new business opportunities. - Establish estimation methodologies, standards, templates, and governance processes. - Review and validate assumptions related to staffing, schedules, budgets, scope, dependencies, and delivery strategies. - Continuously improve estimation quality and forecasting accuracy across the organization. **Client Presentations & Proposal Support** - Participate in client discovery sessions to understand project goals, requirements, constraints, and success criteria. - Lead or support proposal presentations, workshops, and solution reviews. - Present design approaches, delivery strategies, staffing models, and production methodologies to prospective clients. - Build client confidence through expertise, preparation, and clear communication. - Support and coach department leaders in client-facing activities. - Remain an escalation POC for accounts in the capacity of Executive Producer after a project kick-off. **Bid Governance & Continuous Improvement** - Establish and maintain bid management processes, proposal standards, templates, and best practices. - Coordinate contributions from all departments involved in proposal development. - Ensure proposals are delivered on time and meet quality expectations. - Analyze proposal outcomes and implement improvements to increase win rates, estimation accuracy, and proposal effectiveness. ### Standards, Processes & Capability Development **Governance & Best Practices** - Establish, maintain, and evolve department standards, methodologies, and best practices. - Drive consistency in design reviews, documentation, estimation practices, proposal development, and delivery planning. - Audit workflows and processes to improve effectiveness, quality, and scalability. - Ensure design and development frameworks are appropriately adapted to project and client needs. **Training & Capability Development** - Define and execute the department’s learning and development strategy. - Identify current and future skill requirements across design disciplines. - Establish training programs, mentorship initiatives, and professional development opportunities. - Promote continuous improvement in design craft, communication, leadership, and industry expertise. ## Requirements **Required** - 10+ years of experience in game development, including significant experience in game design leadership. - 5+ years leading large multidisciplinary teams or departments. - Experience working within AAA, co-development, external development, or live-service environments. - Proven success managing client relationships and supporting business development activities. - Experience leading estimation, proposal development, or bid management efforts. - Strong understanding of game design disciplines, production methodologies, and development pipelines. - Demonstrated ability to lead organizational growth, strategic planning, and change management initiatives. - Exceptional communication, presentation, negotiation, and stakeholder management skills. **Preferred** - Experience working with multiple international publishers and development partners. - Experience leading large-scale RFP responses and proposal development activities. - Experience managing globally distributed teams. - Experience building scalable organizations across multiple projects and genres. - Experience developing estimation frameworks and bid management processes. - Promote continuous improvement in design craft, communication, leadership, and industry expertise. ### Success Measures **Department Leadership** - Employee engagement and retention. - Leadership development and succession readiness. - Department utilization and organizational effectiveness. - Achievement of departmental strategic objectives. **Design Excellence** - Design quality across projects. - Client satisfaction and partner retention. - Successful project delivery outcomes. - Adoption and effectiveness of department standards and methodologies. **Bid Management & Business Growth** - Proposal win rate. - Revenue generated from supported opportunities. - Proposal quality and on-time submission rate. - Estimation accuracy and forecast reliability. - Margin performance against proposal assumptions. - Alignment between proposal commitments and project execution outcomes. - Contribution to studio growth and new business acquisition. **50% Department Leader** - Design strategy - People management - Quality - Capability development **50% Head of Solutions / Bid Director** - New business opportunities - Estimation - Proposal creation - Client pitches ## Benefits - Competitive remuneration - Projects aligned with your expertise and interests - Collaboration with industry leaders on AAA titles - Professional growth opportunities - Flexible work arrangements - An environment dedicated to diversity and inclusion ## Apply [Apply at Sperasoft](https://apply.workable.com/sperasoft/j/889D9FFA5C/apply) --- Powered by [Workable](https://www.workable.com)