The Americas (Remote) – Must reside within the UTC-3 to UTC-9 timezones

Senior Unity Gameplay Engineer (Remote)

Seismic Squirrel LLC

Job Title: Senior Unity Gameplay Engineer

The Game: A vehicular RPG videogame set in an alternate history 1930s New York.

Role: Unity programming and game architecture.

Experience: Senior Level, 5+ years of professional Unity gameplay engineering experience.
Must have successfully shipped a game title in the engineering role.

Location: The Americas (Remote) – Must reside within the UTC-3 to UTC-9 timezones.

Company Size: 12

Pay: $50 - $75 USD per hour – Depends on skills and experience.

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

Overview

We are looking for a creative and resourceful Senior Gameplay Engineer with 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 contractor position which requires regular collaboration online during our core work hours (9:00 AM – 3:00 PM Pacific), attending relevant team meetings (e.g. daily scrum, retrospectives, sprint planning, and design meetings). Occasional calls during late evenings, nights, and early mornings should be expected for meetings with international contributors. 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 funding. H-1B transfers and sponsorships are not available at this time.

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

Quests

Design and implement…
- Gameplay Systems: Vehicle physics, damage states, targeting, firing arcs, line of sight, fog of war.
- Combat AI: State machines, NPC stances and behaviors, pathfinding.
- Tools: Level design, vehicle configuration and stats, map editor, narrative editor.
Creatively apply engineering best practices to implement architecture and programming for our next videogame, a vehicular RPG.
Identify and modify existing frameworks according to our project needs, building some game frameworks and subsystems from scratch as needed.
Engage in all aspects of game programming: Systems, UI / UX, APIs, internationalization and localization, optimization, and instrumentation.
Troubleshoot code and fix bugs.
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

5+ years of experience as an 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.
Experienced creating combat enemy AI.
Deep understanding of Unity and the performance impact of game architecture.
Adept at object-oriented programming and design principles.
Excellent problem-solving skills, resourceful, able to find solutions when needed.
An enthusiasm 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 leader and mentor.
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.
Proficient in Microsoft Word, Excel, and Visio.
Passionate to learn new tools and technologies.

Bonus Points

Practical knowledge of UML is a plus.

A note about Unity: We realize that Unity's company and leadership have made some blunders and received deserved criticism in the press lately. But we still believe in the technical merits of the tool and the principles of managed code allowing developers to focus on gameplay instead of the underlying technology. We remain committed to the Unity community. It remains the best tool for developing mid-core games for the common game platforms.

If this sounds like an exciting opportunity for you and you're located in the Americas, please submit both your cover letter and résumé to Seismic Squirrel.

Senior Unity Gameplay Engineer (Remote)

About Seismic Squirrel

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