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Senior Unity Game Engineer (Remote)

Seismic Squirrel LLC

Job Title: Senior Unity Game Engineer

Our Games: Narrative-centric RPG videogames set in an alternate history 1930s New York.

Role: Unity programming and game architecture, Engineering leadership.

Experience: Senior Level, 8+ years of professional Unity videogame engineering experience
        developing for PC / console. Must have successfully shipped game titles in the senior
        engineering role.

Location: USA or Canada (Remote) – Must reside within the UTC-4 to UTC-8 timezones.

Company Size: 24

Pay: $62 - $75 USD per hour – Depends on skills and experience.

Job Type: Contract-to-Hire (see below)

Overview

We are looking for a creative and resourceful Senior Gameplay Engineer with effective leadership skills, a clear understanding of Unity programming, experience developing combat AI systems, a logical and systemic thinker, with an iterative approach to development, a collaborative spirit, excellent communication skills, and an enthusiasm for RPG and turn-based videogames.  The ideal candidate enjoys working with talented engineers, designers, writers, artists, and management, with a drive to create a fun and cohesive gameplay experience, able to empathize with both new players and with experts of the genre.

The ideal candidate communicates effectively in a small cross-functional remote team environment, clearly presenting their ideas to stakeholders for signoff.  They bring a passion for working within an iterative development environment, having a collaborative spirit and an enthusiasm for videogames.

This is a remote position which requires regular team collaboration online during our company's core work hours (9:30 AM – 4:30 PM Pacific), attending relevant meetings (e.g. daily scrum, retrospective, sprint planning, and design meetings).  Occasional evening calls should be expected for collaboration with overseas vendors.  The option to convert to full-time employee may be available to ideal candidates, depending on their location, skills, fit, project needs and schedule, and timing.  H-1B transfers and sponsorships are not available at this time.

Quests

• Design, implement, and improve…
  • Narrative: Integration with authoring, dialog, localization, and voiceover tools and content.
  • Combat: Vehicle physics, damage states, targeting, firing arcs, line of sight, area of effect.
  • Maps and Scenes: Travel, POI availability and interactions, encounters.
  • Backend: Save file system, achievements, DLC support.
  • Tools: Level design, unit and stats configuration, map editor, narrative editor.
• Lead assigned engineering efforts, mentoring, effectively coordinating and delegating engineering duties.
• Prototype new gameplay ideas and mechanics.
• Creatively apply engineering best practices to implement architecture and programming for our games.
• Own and support our DevOps and CI / CD pipelines utilizing Unity Cloud Build and Bitbucket.
• Identify and modify existing frameworks according to our project needs, building game frameworks and subsystems from scratch as needed.
• Engage in all aspects of game programming: Front-end and back-end, systems, UI / UX, APIs, internationalization and localization, validation, optimization, and analytics instrumentation.
• Expand games from PC to console platforms.
• Troubleshoot code and fix bugs.
• Utilize unit testing and mocking, data validation, story walker, and other tools and techniques to ensure high product quality.
• Mentor junior programmers.
• Educate and explain programming concerns to the rest of the Development Team.
• Work with the Design Team to maintain UX quality throughout the development process.
• Actively collaborate with the rest of the Development Team, openly communicating progress and problems, helping us set realistic project timelines and expectations.
• Participate in internal game testing and feedback.
• Help to create and maintain core technical documentation.
• Balance and prioritize tasks to meet deadlines, working within agreed timeframes and budgets.

Character Stats

• 8+ years of experience as a Unity software engineer through the full lifecycle of game development from start to finish:
  concept, design, prototyping, programming, content creation, testing, optimization, launch, support.
• Strong Unity programming experience, specifically with turn-based combat games for PC / console.
• Experienced creating and balancing combat AI.
• Deep understanding of Unity and the performance impact of game architecture.
• Adept at object-oriented programming and design principles using C# and the .NET platform.
• Experienced managing Windows and Linux servers powering pipelines automation.
  
• Familiar with software engineering best practices, design patterns, and unit testing.
• Excellent problem-solving skills, resourceful, able to find solutions when needed.
• Enthusiastic for quality gameplay and a familiarity with many games and genres, past and present.
• Strong self-discipline, motivated, a self-starter with a drive for excellence.
• Organized, detail-oriented, able to work fast and loose or carefully with quality when each is needed.
• Courteous and patient, able to give and receive constructive and inspirational feedback gracefully.
• Able to work effectively with people having a variety of personalities and backgrounds.
• Wise leadership skills with high emotional intelligence, a respected mentor across disciplines.
• Adaptable: The job can change according to the needs at hand and requires wearing various hats.
• Able to work remotely using various collaboration tools.
• Strong written, visual, and verbal English language communication and presentation skills.
• Familiar with design diagramming techniques using UML.
• Experienced working with professional narrative authoring tools (e.g. Articy, Arcweave, Pixel Crushers).
• Proficient in Microsoft Word, Excel, and Visio.
• Passionate to learn new tools and technologies.

Bonus Points

• Familiar with Pixel Crushers' Dialogue System for Unity.
• Familiar with Dark Tonic's Master Audio.
• Experienced using creative tools (e.g. Adobe Photoshop, Blender, 3ds Max, Figma).
• Experienced with XML processing, DOM, SAX, XSD, XPath, and XSLT.
  
• Located in one of our hub metros: Seattle, Los Angeles, Austin, or Edmonton.

The Company

Seismic Squirrel is a talented and passionate team of both industry veterans and enthusiastic newcomers.  We share a strong desire to tell fascinating stories supporting engaging gameplay mechanics.

If this sounds like an exciting opportunity for you, and if you're located and authorized to work in the USA or Canada, please submit both your cover letter and résumé to Seismic Squirrel.

For more information about Seismic Squirrel, go to https://www.SeismicSquirrel.com/