Invisible  caretaking

Sanvi didn’t mind mentoring junior designers. She  had done it for years, long before it was written into  anyone’s OKRs. What shifted after she entered senior  management was the volume of requests that quietly  moved her way. 

One evening, after a long day, she opened her  inbox to find three messages unrelated to any of  her projects, each asking for advice, mediation, or  emotional support. She answered them, because  ignoring them would feel wrong, but she also knew  these expectations didn’t land equally across the  leadership team. At her level, she could influence creative direction.  Yet increasingly, she was also expected to protect the  culture around it. 

Inclusive studio spaces

Sanvi’s experience of returning from maternity leave  and having to re-establish work she had already  earned at her previous job, stayed with her longer  than she expected. A few months into her senior role at the new studio,  when plans for an office renovation were being  discussed, she made one firm recommendation: the  space needed a mother’s room. She wasn’t asking for  herself. She was asking so no one else would have to  navigate early parenthood in hallways and restrooms  the way she once had. The request was really well received. It simply hadn’t  occurred to anyone. Once raised, the team signed off  quickly. By the end of the quarter, a private room had  been set aside and treated as an ordinary part of the  floor plan rather than a special favour. 

Not all genres  are equal

In a quarterly planning meeting, Sanvi presented  a concept for a new title. It was a mid-scale  narrative game shaped around everyday choices  and relationships. She had data on completion  rates for similar genres and examples of successful  international releases. But the room paused at the  tone of the idea. Someone asked, “Is this too emotional for our  audience?”Another added, “Can we try something  with more punch? Players here prefer intensity.” A  third worried the story might feel “too local,” though  they couldn’t articulate what that meant. 

Sanvi answered each question clearly but she knew  what was going on. When a male colleague pitched  an equally experimental combat feature earlier that  morning, the conversation had jumped straight to  feasibility and technical scope. With her work, the  discussion circled first around legitimacy and whether  the very premise counted as “real gameplay.” She didn’t stop pushing the idea forward every  chance she had. 

Double checks

During one of her interviews for the senior role, Sanvi  mentioned that she had led the design on a well known mobile title. The credits were public and the  work had travelled farther than she expected. The hiring panel asked her to walk through the core  loop. She did by outlining the player motivations and  the narrative beats that shaped the emotional arc.  When she finished, one of the interviewers paused  and asked, “So you “owned’ all of this?” 

She nodded. Another interviewer followed with, “Just  to be clear, you were leading the design, not assisting  the design lead?” 

It was the tone people use when they assume  there must be someone else behind the work.  She explained the process again, this time adding  specifics she hadn’t needed to say in previous  interviews. She could feel herself over-proving what  would have been taken at face value from someone  else. Later, when she received the offer letter, she felt both  relief and something harder to name. She had cleared  every bar, but she also knew she had been asked to  clear bars others were simply assumed to meet. 

Not designed for  career breaks

At her previous studio, Sanvi took six months of  maternity leave. The team was supportive, and her  manager checked in often. But when she returned,  the contours of her job had shifted in ways no one  intended to harm her, yet they did. 

A feature track she had owned had been passed to  another lead “temporarily.” A cross-team narrative  initiative she had drafted was now part of someone  else’s roadmap. Her promotion conversation, which  was in motion before she left, was deferred with a  soft reassurance: “Let’s give it a quarter. You’ve just  come back.” 

Every explanation sounded reasonable. But taken  together, it meant she had to rebuild momentum she  had already earned. 

She did the work. Caught up on months of decisions  and re-staked her place in discussions. She knew  she was good at her job. That was never in question.  What bothered her was realising how quickly her  trajectory was treated as negotiable.