Contract Unity Vr Developer Jobs (NOW HIRING)

Principal VR Developer

Our Austin-based VR client in the personalized biofeedback and wellness space seeks a highly experienced VR Developer to join their growing team! In this role (the most senior role on the VR engineering team), you will engineer VR experiences for users to cultivate self-awareness, regulate emotions, and unlock cognitive performance. The qualified Principal VR Developer will combine deep technical mastery in Unity and C# with the pragmatism and ambition to drive impact across the full product stack, architecting VR scenes and user experiences that users feel in their body, not just see through a screen. The Principal VR Developer will own how scenes are composed, how interactions are designed, how shaders and audio combine to produce a felt experience, and how biosignal-driven adaptation is woven into every moment a user spends with the device.

This is a direct-hire opportunity with benefits. Target salary range is $160,000 - $190,000 with some flexibility potential for the ideal candidate. The Principal VR Developer will sit primarily onsite in the Austin, TX company HQ, so candidates must be local to or willing to move to Austin. Relocation assistance may be available on a case-by-case basis. No visa sponsorship or subcontracting arrangements available.

Responsibilities of the Principal VR Developer:

• ·       Architect end-to-end development and optimization of VR experiences in Unity, including scene composition, interaction systems, state management, and runtime performance targeting standalone Android-based VR hardware.
• ·       Define the patterns other VR engineers build on: how scenes are loaded, how state flows between training modules, how adaptive logic plugs into experience code. Set the bar for scene structure, performance, and interaction quality across the team and hold it.
• ·       Architect and maintain clean, scalable C# codebases, applying software design patterns that support rapid iteration and long-term maintainability.
• ·       Translate physiological constructs (HRV coherence, EEG band ratios, eye-tracking patterns) into responsive, embodied scene behavior thresholds, feedback loops, intensity scaling, and progression and drive the closed-loop logic in real time within defined latency budgets.
• ·       Build and integrate real-time data pipelines that ingest, process, and visualize live biosignal streams (EEG, PPG, EDA, IMU, eye tracking) within the VR environment to drive adaptive, personalized experiences.
• ·       Develop and maintain integrations between the VR layer and broader backend systems REST/WebSocket APIs, cloud data infrastructure, and analytics pipelines contributing meaningfully beyond the Unity layer.
• ·       Own the full graphics pipeline: writing and optimizing custom shaders (HLSL/ShaderGraph), render features, post-processing, and platform-specific GPU profiling to hit demanding frame rate and latency targets on-device.
• ·       Engineer the spatial audio pipeline using frameworks such as Steam Audio or Resonance Audio, from sound design integration through real-time DSP implementation. Treat audio as a primary modality for regulation and presence, not a polish layer.
• ·       Build against the device SDK owned by the Principal Systems Engineer surface clean integration boundaries, push back on leaky abstractions, and contribute the application-layer requirements that shape the SDK.
• ·       Apply software expertise fluidly across the business: whether that’s prototyping a signal processing module, contributing to a web dashboard, improving dev tooling, or stress-testing a data pipeline, you bring rigor and speed wherever it’s needed.
• ·       Partner with designers, product managers, neuroscientists, hardware engineers, and the Principal Systems Engineer to translate ambitious concepts into shippable products, balancing technical excellence with real-world constraints and timelines.
• ·       Diagnose and resolve complex technical challenges across VR interaction, rendering performance, input systems, biosignal latency, and cross-platform compatibility.
• ·       Set the technical direction for VR engineers on the team through architecture reviews, code review, and direct mentorship without taking on management — and champion a culture of pragmatic innovation, evaluating emerging tools, frameworks, and workflows with a bias toward shipping and learning fast.

Qualifications of the Principal VR Developer:

• ·       Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science or a related field is preferred.
• ·       10+ years'' industry experience in VR meditation, training, gaming, biofeedback, or similar fields, with a track record of shipping immersive, interactive experiences to real users (not prototypes) across multiple platforms.
• ·       Deep mastery of Unity and C# at the level expected of the most senior VR engineer in the room, backed by a strong portfolio of shipped VR projects.
• ·       Demonstrated ownership of the full graphics pipeline shaders (HLSL/ShaderGraph), render features, post-processing, and GPU profiling on Android-based standalone VR hardware.
• ·       Hands-on experience with spatial audio pipelines (Steam Audio, Resonance Audio, or equivalent), including real-time DSP work.
• ·       Experience architecting Unity codebases that scale across multiple engineers and multiple scenes without collapsing into ad-hoc state.
• ·       Experience integrating real-time data streams into VR experiences within strict latency budgets, ideally including biosignal-driven adaptive systems (EEG, HRV, eye tracking, voice).
• ·       Strong understanding of game development principles, object-oriented design, and VR-specific interaction models.
• ·       Experience with third-party plugin integration and multi-platform development on Android-based XR platforms (Quest, Pico, Spaces), ideally including migrations between runtimes.
• ·       Solid knowledge of Git and version control practices within an Agile environment.
• ·       Excellent problem-solving skills with the ability to work autonomously and manage multiple projects simultaneously.
• ·       Strong communication skills and a proven ability to set technical direction across crossfunctional, remote teams without formal authority.
• ·       Experience building biofeedback, meditation, training, therapeutic, or otherwise non-game VR experiences where the felt outcome matters more than entertainment is strongly preferred.
• ·       Experience working closely with research, neuroscience, or human-factors teams is strongly preferred.
• ·       Familiarity with the platform / SDK layer underneath Unity enough to be a real partner to the Principal Systems Engineer is strongly preferred.

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