Herd Security is an agentic AI creative platform built for continuous security training and simulation. Founded in 2025, Herd helps organizations move beyond once-a-year compliance checkboxes, replacing static programs with dynamic curricula that evolve alongside emerging threats without adding operational overhead. Security and GRC teams use the platform as a creative partner to translate practitioner expertise into compelling content and deploy it across the channels employees frequently use, including Slack, Teams, and LMS. When a new threat surfaces, the platform enables organizations to shift from IT tickets or vendor requests to iterative microlessons delivered the same day. This puts the people behind security back at the center, empowering practitioner expertise, making awareness more habitual, and using every interaction to fuel a feedback loop that strengthens the human layer of defense.
Position Overview
We are looking for a Gaming Design Engineer to lead the gamification of the Herd platform. Security awareness has an engagement problem: most people complete it under duress and forget it immediately. Our thesis is that continuous security training can be genuinely fun—something employees opt into rather than endure—if it borrows from the design language of great consumer games and learning products like Duolingo, Habitica, and mobile free-to-play mechanics. You will be the person who makes that thesis real, designing the mechanics that turn microlessons into habits and the feedback loops that let every learner interaction strengthen the platform. This role blends game design sensibility, behavioral psychology, and full-stack engineering—you will design the systems and build them.
Responsibilities
Design progression systems, including levels, streaks, XP, badges, and seasonal content, that reward learning without trivializing the security subject matter
Build leaderboards, team-based challenges, and social mechanics that tap into organizational culture without creating toxic competition
Develop reward loops and economy systems that feel generous to learners while remaining economically sustainable to the business
Collaborate with the agentic content generation engine to ensure generated microlessons slot cleanly into game-like formats (quests, missions, threat-response challenges, etc.)
Design game mechanics that reinforce the feedback loop at the heart of the platform—turning every learner interaction into a signal that strengthens future content
Instrument and analyze engagement metrics—retention, session length, completion rates—and iterate on mechanics based on what the data actually shows, not what you hoped would happen
Partner with customer-facing teams to understand how security leaders want to motivate their workforce, and translate that into configurable game mechanics
Required Qualifications
Full-stack engineering capability, with proficiency in TypeScript and comfort working across frontend (Next.js, Tailwind) and backend (Node, PostgreSQL) layers
Demonstrated experience designing and shipping gamified or game-like features in a production product—whether in games, edtech, fitness, consumer apps, or elsewhere
Strong intuition for game feel: pacing, feedback, reward timing, and the difference between mechanics that engage and mechanics that manipulate
Comfort with analytics and experimentation—you treat engagement metrics as inputs to iteration, not scoreboards
Ability to take ownership of features end-to-end, from pitch to design to implementation to measurement
Proficiency with AI-assisted development tools (e.g., GitHub Copilot, Cursor, Claude) as part of your regular workflow
Preferred Qualifications
Background in game development, whether at a game studio or as a serious hobbyist
Experience with learning products, behavior change apps, or any product where engagement is the core metric
Familiarity with behavioral psychology, self-determination theory, or adult learning principles
Experience designing for enterprise contexts, where admin configurability and cultural sensitivity matter
Background in the security industry or security-related products
Prior experience at early-stage startups
Compensation & Benefits
Salary: $100,000–$160,000 OTE
Equity
Health, dental, vision, and life benefits
Unlimited PTO
WFH Stipend
Opportunity to define an entirely new product surface area
Direct impact on a small, focused team with minimal process overhead
Logistics
Location: Remote — US Mandatory, California Preferred