Principal Game Economist

Level Up Your Career with Zynga!

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Founded in 2007 and headquartered in California, our teams span North America, Europe, and Asia, working together to craft unforgettable gaming experiences. Whether you're spinning, strategizing, matching, or competing, Zynga is where fun meets innovation—and where you can take your career to the next level.

Join us and be part of the play!

Position Overview:

We are seeking a highly skilled and experienced Principal Game Economist to join our team in Barcelona. Reporting directly to the Director of Economy and working closely alongside another Lead Economist, you will operate as a centralized expert resource across three different studios.

Unlike traditional game economy roles focused on a single title, you will lead economic strategy and systems design on a project basis, supporting various games across our extended portfolio. While this is a high-level Individual Contributor role with no direct reports, your leadership impact will be massive. You will analyze each game, identify key opportunities and challenges, and build sustainable solutions while elevating our internal economy practices. You will establish best practices, develop robust frameworks, and mentor embedded game teams so they can eventually own and manage their economies independently.

This role is highly strategic and deeply hands-on: blending advanced research, complex system design, cross-studio collaboration, and technical mentorship.

What You'll Do:

You aren't just working on one game; you are a key economic architect across three studios. You will step into different projects to diagnose economic health, design robust pricing and reward systems, and empower local teams to execute your designs.

• Drive Cross-Studio strategy: Serve as the shared expert supporting multiple games across distinct studios. You will take ownership of the economic design phase for targeted projects, identifying gaps and implementing tailored solutions to drive engagement and business performance.

• Collaborate at the highest level: Work in tandem with another Lead Economist and report directly to the Director of Economy to align on portfolio-wide strategies, tackle complex systemic challenges, and ensure consistent design standards across all studios.

• Mentor and Empower teams: Act as a technical leader and mentor for game-level economy designers and PMs. While you won't have direct reports, you will lead through influence, training internal teams on advanced economic frameworks and ensuring they have the tools to manage their game's economy long-term.

• Design and simulate: Leverage your quantitative expertise to build complex predictive models, run simulations, and design A/B tests that validate your design decisions and forecast the impact of new features.

• Bridge the gap globally: Drive cross-functional efforts with Product Managers, Data Scientists, and Engineers across different teams and geographies, acting as a technical bridge to ensure seamless execution from concept to live ops.

What You Bring:

• Economic Mastery: A Bachelor's or Master's degree in Economics, Math, Statistics, or a related quantitative field, paired with a proven track record of designing and optimizing complex game economies at a senior or lead level.

• Technical Proficiency: Advanced analytical skills with a "must-have" mastery of Excel. Experience with SQL, R, or Python is a significant advantage for deep-dive research and modeling.

• Leadership Through Influence: Demonstrated ability to drive strategic initiatives and upskill junior or mid-level talent across multiple studios or departments without formal reporting lines. You excel at matrix leadership and cross-functional collaboration.

• F2P Passion: A deep-seated interest in Free-to-Play mechanics and a sophisticated understanding of how to balance player experience with sustainable monetization.

Bonus Points:

• Additional background in Monetization strategy to complement your economic expertise.

• Experience working on large-scale online, social, or multiplayer games.

What's in it for you as a Socialpointer?

• Hybrid working model: we ask you to come to our Barcelona office at least 2 days per week

• A generous 25 days of annual leave, plus public holidays

• Private medical insurance for you and your family to keep your health bar full

• Disability and life insurance

• Choose from the latest iOS or Android device when you join (phone or tablet)

• Free language lessons in English, Spanish and Catalan

• Spotify Premium to add the perfect soundtrack to your adventure

• Legendary social events and parties to let off some steam

• Take-Two Interactive employee stock purchase plan (eligibility criteria applies)

• Professional development budget for skills training

Onsite perks include:

• State-of-the-art gym facilities

• Free breakfast, lunch, and specialty coffee

• Onsite physiotherapist and hairdresser (no wallet needed!)

The list goes on and on… so get your game on and apply now! Click “Apply” to level up and submit your application in English.

We are proud to be an equal opportunity employer, which means we are committed to creating and celebrating diverse thoughts, cultures, and backgrounds throughout our organization.  Employment with us is based on substantive ability, objective qualifications, and work ethic – not an individual’s race, creed, color, religion, sex or gender, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, national origin or ancestry, alienage or citizenship status, physical or mental disability, pregnancy, age, genetic information, veteran status, marital status, status as a victim of domestic violence or sex offenses, reproductive health decision, or any other characteristics protected by applicable law.

As an equal opportunity employer, we are committed to providing the necessary support and accommodation to qualified individuals with disabilities, health conditions, or impairments (subject to any local qualifying requirements) to ensure their full participation in the job application or interview process. Please contact us at Ver el correo electrónico en job-boards.greenhouse.io to request any accommodations or for support related to your application for an open position.

Please be aware that Zynga does not conduct job interviews or make job offers over third-party messaging apps such as Telegram, WhatsApp, or others.  Zynga also does not engage in any financial exchanges during the recruitment or onboarding process, and will never ask a candidate for their personal or financial information over an app or other unofficial chat channel.  Any attempt to do so may be the result of a scamp or phishing attack, and you should not engage.  Zynga’s  in-house recruitment team will only contact individuals through their official Company email addresses (i.e., via a zynga.com, take2games.com, naturalmotion.com, smallgiantgames.com, themavens.com, gram.gs email domain).