It depends on how you define talent, we dont want people who can make nice panaromas that are unplayable. We had far to much of that in our previous releases sadly. The focus of the designer is to create a good experience for the players, if it can be done from a "real" scanario even better. This position is for work on the russian 1944 campaign for now but of course we wont stay with that forever.
Your job as the designer is to layout the overall design of the map. Planning out distances, how the map is going to play from a fixed point (combined arms, tank map, infantry map, city map)
*Work on the playable areas heightmap to give nice flanking positions, ridges, roads, chokepoints.
* Use statics to provide cover (boxes, sandbags, wrecks, craters)
*Make good flag areas with team spawns so that the fights are always over the flags and not some random defined area, you plan out how the fights for each flag is going to take place.
* Make sure that main bases cannot be baseraped easily
*Adjust the map with feedback from testing (this is the most important part since no matter how well you plan your map, hardcore gamers always tend to find loopholes in your design
)
* Make sure all paths and roads are logical and smooth (apply spline etc)
* Make sure your design works from performance constrains laid out by the engine/content.
What you need in technical skills:
Working with heightmaps in bf2editor (the common tools, plattform tool, apply spline)
Level editor in bf2 (placing statics, measure tool, road tool)
Being able to paint in editor to create masks for the artists to use (mask out areas with gravel, dirt fields etc)
Make basic Overgrowth needed for gameplay.
But most important: Youre fanatical about creating a good and solid experince for the players,
Art skills: lighting, texturing, statics, undergrowth, effects, sounds and advanced heightmaps are made by the artists/sound guys. What is good is if you can communicate visual concepts of lighting, statics, terrain to artists trough drawings or photos but not necessary. Thats also why strong teamplay and communication skills are necessary.
If you have previous experience from mapping another mod or tournaments thats ideal.