Wargaming Research Systems Specialist (Game Designer)

Role Overview

Wargaming Research Systems Specialist (Game Designer) at Anduril Industries in Abu Dhabi, UAE. Initial role location is London, UK, while the simulation center is under construction.

Company Overview

Anduril Industries is a defense technology company transforming U.S. and allied military capabilities through advanced technology. The company brings 21st-century innovation to the defense industry, changing how military systems are designed, built, and sold. Anduril's family of systems is powered by Lattice OS, an AI-powered operating system that turns thousands of data streams into a realtime, 3D command and control center. The Advanced Capabilities team develops operationally relevant wargaming and training for customers in multiple regions. This position supports a new simulation center in Abu Dhabi providing training and simulation services to partners and customers in the region.

Role Purpose

Design, develop, and deliver operationally relevant wargames and immersive training scenarios for military customers. Work directly with EDGE and the Emirati Ministry of Defense to translate customer objectives into structured wargames, exercises, and mission simulations using Anduril's proprietary modeling, simulation, and augmented/virtual reality tools.

Key Responsibilities

Scenario Design & Development

• Research, design, and develop operationally relevant wargames within the Air Maneuver Dominance and Advanced Capabilities team.
• Own scenario design end-to-end, including operational context, orders of battle, friendly and adversary forces, objectives, timelines, victory conditions, and analytic questions each event is meant to answer.
• Translate customer objectives and operational problems into structured, immersive wargames built in Anduril's proprietary modeling and simulation tools and Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality software.

Exercise Execution & Facilitation

• Run and facilitate in-depth multi-day wargaming exercises, serving as the designer and control cell lead for planning, preparation, execution, and recovery.
• Drive gameplay, adjudicate outcomes, manage friendly and opposition moves and injects, and adapt scenarios in real time to keep events challenging, credible, and aligned to customer learning objectives.

Content & Library Management

• Build and maintain a reusable library of wargame scenarios, models, and content in Anduril M&S and AR/VR software.
• Refine and improve processes across Software, Hardware, Logistics, Growth, and Engineering teams so that events can be rapidly configured, repeated, and scaled from small demonstrations to large exercises without loss of fidelity.

Feedback & Continuous Improvement

• Design and implement structured After-Action Reviews and user feedback loops to gather, triage, and prioritize insights, requirements, and challenges surfaced during wargames, exercises, and daily corporate demo use.
• Turn findings into concrete improvements to scenarios, adjudication logic, and event delivery.

Product & Engineering Support

• Provide input to product and engineering teams to drive development of features, models, and configurations that enhance Anduril's wargaming, mission simulation, and Virtual Warfare products.
• Advocate for the tools and content designers need to build better wargames faster.

End-User Support & Learning

• Support end-users in understanding advanced warfare concepts through development of relentlessly improving wargame content, integration into existing Anduril and customer systems, and delivery of effective events.
• Maximize engagement and learning while minimizing the impact of hardware or software issues on the experience.

Team Development

• Develop and contribute to an Advanced Capabilities team that includes cross-functional representation from Project and Program Managers, Operations Analysts, Mission Simulation Engineers, Wargaming Engineers, Design/Artists, senior Air Maneuver Dominance team, and corporate leadership.
• Work across other business lines and with customers to ensure the team continues to improve, refine, and streamline how wargames are designed, delivered, and learned from across both small-scale demos and large-scale exercises and events.

Qualifications & Experience

• Proven experience designing, developing, and running wargames, structured analytic exercises, or operational training scenarios across a diverse set of clients, teams, roles, and operational environments.
• Track record of providing excellent customer service to the Air Maneuver Dominance business line (primary) as well as additional business lines (secondary).
• Eligible to obtain and maintain associated country background check and security clearance to support increasingly complex and potentially classified exercises.

Skills & Competencies

• Demonstrated comfort communicating effectively both internally and externally: on the team and across Anduril's many business lines, software platforms, organizations, and clients.
• Expertise in scenario design, complex problem solving, proactive planning, rehearsals, and troubleshooting to ensure a seamless, transparent customer experience.
• Demonstrated level of healthy paranoia bordering on obsessive-compulsive attention to detail and obsession with ensuring wargames are plausible, repeatable, controllable, and without breaking before putting customers inside immersive wargaming and VR/AR environments.
• Experience designing and building wargames or simulations in government or civilian wargaming or simulation software such as AFSIM, SIMDIS, DCS, or comparable constructive, virtual, or gaming-engine platforms.
• Experience and familiarity with military operations, tactics, techniques, procedures, and hierarchies for both friendly and adversarial forces.
• Familiarity with Confluence, Jira, Slack, Quip, Microsoft Office, and Zoom as means to organize data and communicate across teams effectively.
• Experience building trust with clients and teammates quickly and effectively under sometimes stressful conditions.
• Prior military or government experience, particularly in wargaming, operational planning, red teaming, or exercise design.

Additional Information

• Willingness to travel, be based in the UAE, and participate in collaboration with teammates in the UK and USA.
• Highly competitive equity grants are included in the majority of full-time offers and are considered part of Anduril's total compensation package.
• Top-tier benefits for full-time employees, including comprehensive and competitive benefits package available at little to no cost to employees, ensuring support in health, recovery, and future needs.