Product Manager, LiveOps - Mattel Digital Studio at MattelInc in El Segundo, CALIFORNIA, United States

Job description

• Mattel Game Studios' mission is to harness the power of Mattel's iconic brands and IP to create a wide variety of engaging digital games. Our team is guided by industry leaders with decades of experience in various facets of the gaming industry. We are seeking talented individuals to join us in our mission to create innovative and engaging digital experiences that resonate with our beloved brands. If you are passionate about gaming and eager to be part of a dynamic, forward-thinking team in family entertainment, this is the opportunity for you!
• Job Description
• Mattel Game Studios is seeking a Product Manager, LiveOps for our casual portfolio. Your first assignment is our upcoming title built around Barbie, our flagship IP, with scope extending to additional casual titles as the slate grows.
• This role owns LiveOps strategy and the meta-layer end-to-end: progression systems, collection and customization mechanics, event architecture, offer strategy, and reward structures — from pre-launch architecture through live operations. You will define the product strategy for these systems around the IP to create a cohesive experience where the brand drives player engagement, retention, and long-term revenue.
• Mattel Game Studios operates as a publisher with external development studios. This role is the LiveOps lead on the publisher side, working day-to-day with the studio's Game Design, Engineering, and Production teams while aligning internal stakeholders across Product, Marketing, and Data.
• The ideal candidate is passionate about casual mobile games and IP-driven player experiences, has strong instincts for how fashion, lifestyle, or collection-based meta systems drive engagement, is scrappy and proactive, thrives in a build-from-scratch environment, brings a bias toward experimentation and rapid iteration, is comfortable operating with ambiguity in a game still taking shape, and keeps up with the latest trends in LiveOps, monetization, and the broader free-to-play market.

Responsibilities

• Co-own the game's feature roadmap with Product, Game Design, Production and the external development studio. Drive prioritization of features that strengthen the meta experience and IP expression, support the LiveOps strategy, and maintain a healthy game economy.
• Develop the LiveOps event framework and cadence strategy from scratch, defining event types, reward structures and seasonal beats — then execute and iterate a content calendar that maximizes engagement, retention and monetization.
• Own the meta-progression and offer strategy: define the player-facing shape of collection and customization progression, offer architecture, and the promotional calendar. Specify economic intent and success criteria; the Lead Designer, Systems and Economy models and balances the underlying systems to meet it. Ensure the meta-layer gives players meaningful reasons to engage with the IP across every session.
• Own LiveOps and economy outcomes: set and hold targets for engagement, retention, revenue per user, payer conversion, and economy health, and hold the go/no-go on economy changes shipping to live. Partner with the Lead Designer, Systems and Economy, who owns the underlying economic model and math. Partner with Data to analyze performance, design and run experiments continuously, and report against targets with clear action plans. Share learnings and a data-driven playbook of what works across the team and the external studio.
• Champion the IP in product decisions: ensure that events, offers, collections, and progression milestones express the brand in ways that resonate with the target audience. Partner with Game Design and the external studio to translate IP strength into product requirements and content strategies that drive engagement and monetization.
• Define LiveOps requirements for the external development studio, review builds, provide feedback on design decisions that impact economy and progression, and ensure the publisher–studio feedback loop is tight and productive.
• Keep a pulse on player sentiment via app reviews, community channels, and surveys. Translate feedback into testable hypotheses in coordination with Game Design to inform event design and economy tuning.
• Work cross-functionally across Production, Game Design, Engineering, and Marketing to align on objectives and execute key beats.

Requirements

• 4+ years of experience in free-to-play mobile games in a Product Management or LiveOps role.
• Direct experience working on a casual mobile game with strong meta-layer or collection/customization systems such as fashion, lifestyle, or dress-up games strongly preferred (e.g. Covet Fashion, Design Home, or similar IP-driven titles). Match-3 or puzzle experience is a plus.
• Deep understanding of F2P LiveOps mechanics, meta-progression systems, and game economy fundamentals — you've built or tuned event frameworks, collection or customization loops, and offer strategies, with a track record of measurable impact on engagement and revenue KPIs.
• Strong experimentation instinct — you default to testing hypotheses and move fast to learn and iterate.
• Experience using data tools (BigQuery, Excel/Sheets, Tableau or similar) to drive decisions, including working with economy models and sink/source analyses.
• Excellent written and oral communication skills, with the ability to present key learnings to the broader team.
• Comfortable with ambiguity — you can contribute to or adapt to game design decisions that are still in flux.
• Experience working in a publisher model or collaborating closely with an external development studio.
• Experience with soft launch, geo-testing, or bringing an F2P mobile game from development through global launch.
• Experience working with licensed or well-known consumer IP.

Skills

Required

• Product Management
• LiveOps
• F2P LiveOps mechanics
• Meta-progression systems
• Game economy fundamentals
• Experimentation
• Communication
• Ambiguity management

Preferred

• Publisher model experience

Benefits

• The pay range for this position is between $168,000 and $185,000. The pay range is indicative of projected hiring range, however base pay will be determined based on a candidate’s work location, skills and experience. Mattel offers competitive total pay programs, comprehensive benefits, and resources to help empower a culture where every employee can reach their full potential.