rocketsciencegg - Senior / Principal Game Engineer

• Player Experience Development: Design, implement, and polish gameplay features, UI systems, and 3Cs (character, camera, and controls) that feel responsive, intuitive, and satisfying in players' hands. • Technical Leadership: Own the technical direction for player experience work across projects, making sound architectural decisions, anticipating risks, and guiding solutions from prototype through to ship quality. • Customer-Facing Collaboration: Act as a senior technical representative to our partners, gathering requirements, presenting solutions, communicating trade-offs clearly, and building the trust that underpins great co-development relationships. • Critical Problem Solving: Apply strong analytical and debugging skills, including profiling and diagnostic tools, to investigate and resolve complex technical issues across gameplay, UI, and engine-level systems. • Mentorship: Support and mentor engineers across the team, sharing expertise in player experience engineering and helping to grow the studio's capabilities in gameplay, UI, and 3Cs. • Code Review: Champion high standards of code quality, performance, and maintainability through code reviews, constructive feedback, and by setting the example in your own work. • Expert Software Engineering: Extensive professional experience developing and shipping games, with the depth of judgement expected at a principal level and a history of delivering high-quality, player-facing systems. • Strong C++ and C# Skills: Expert proficiency in C++ and C#, with a commitment to writing clean, maintainable, and efficient code. • Strong 3D Maths: A firm grasp of the linear algebra and geometry that underpin cameras, character movement, animation, and gameplay systems. • Unreal Engine Skills: Deep experience developing player-facing systems in Unreal Engine, including the Gameplay Framework, UMG/Slate, and input and camera systems. Unreal experience is preferred, though we also value strong Unity backgrounds. • Analytical Mindset: Strong analytical skills and a proactive, methodical approach to identifying, diagnosing, and resolving technical challenges. • Customer-Facing Communication: Confidence and clarity when working directly with partners and stakeholders, with the ability to explain complex technical topics to varied audiences. • Player Focus: An instinct for what makes games feel great, and the craft to translate that instinct into responsive controls, readable UI, and satisfying gameplay. • Team Collaboration: Strong communication skills and the ability to work collaboratively with engineers, designers, artists, producers, and project leads. • Passion for Gaming: A genuine enthusiasm for games and a desire to help create engaging, high-quality experiences for players. • WHAT YOU MAY ALSO HAVE: • Console Experience: Experience shipping titles on current-generation consoles such as PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, or Switch 2. • Unity Experience: Professional experience developing and shipping games in Unity alongside your Unreal background. • Advanced Unreal Experience: Familiarity with custom engine modifications, plugin development, the Gameplay Ability System, or working from Unreal Engine source. • Accessibility Knowledge: Experience designing and implementing accessible controls, UI, and player options. • Co-Development Experience: Prior experience in a co-dev, outsourcing, or external development environment working with multiple partners and codebases. • WHAT WE CAN OFFER: • Competitive Salary and Benefits Package: Your health and wellbeing is important to us, so we offer a variety of benefits including: • Hybrid Working Arrangement: Our office in Cardiff is located right in City Centre, just a couple minutes away from the Cardiff Central Train Station! As a member of our team, you’ll have the flexibility to work at home and collaborate with your fellow engineers in person.