Aardvark Swift is supporting nDreams in their search for a Lead Gameplay Programmer to join their Elevation studio as they re-establish the boundaries of VR. 

As a Lead Gameplay Programmer, you will be expected to help them explore, create, and deliver world-leading innovation in software and VR hardware. You’ll also be responsible for leading the game team in prototyping and shipping genre-leading VR gameplay to best-in-class standard. 

Working alongside their diverse team of designers and artists, you will be delivering high levels of innovation with both your team and your own work, collaborating with their technology teams to ensure robust performance on-platform. Become one of the founding members of Elevation, crafting a new generation of VR development and bringing core VR games to fruition.

Your responsibilities…

• Work with your team within an agile framework to discover and build fun and innovative gameplay
• Collaboratively guide development of the game from inception to shipping
• Manage the code side of the agile prototyping and iteration process, taking successful output through to robust production systems
• Work with your team to architect and plan the technical design of gameplay systems and associated tools, processes, and data
• Work alongside technology programming and content creation leads, shipping your game at consistent framerate on multiple platforms
• Support and empower other disciplines in independently creating robust and performant game content
• Ensure their code is clean, maintainable, performant, and documented, setting an example with your own work
• Manage the game programming team, mentoring and developing your staff and ensuring excellent communication across disciplines
• Be an ambassador for Elevation when dealing with other parts of the business, such as external partners and clients
• Be a positive behavioural and mental role model for the team and studio, fostering a culture of excellence, professionalism, collaboration and honesty within your team and Elevation

The skills and experience you’ll bring to the role…

• Eight years of professional game programming experience, with a minimum of three shipped titles on console, PC or VR headset
• Expert knowledge of C++ including high-performance programming
• Solid 3D maths and data structures knowledge, with performance-minded development and optimisation skills
• Demonstrable professional games industry experience in delivering game features, systems, tools, and pipelines using Unreal 4
• Good working knowledge of all aspects of game development
• Comfortable working in an Agile environment, with an ability to respond positively to change as the project progresses
• Strong English communication skills with a focus on positive cross-discipline teamwork and an ability to communicate complex technical information to non-technical staff
• Ability to critique code and suggest improvements diplomatically
• Aptitude for providing game feedback, noting potential issues, and suggesting improvements
• Committed team player who excels at developing team members through constructive feedback and mentoring

It’s a bonus if you have…

• Previous Leadership experience
• Professional experience of VR game development
• Substantial experience shipping AAA console or PC games in Unreal 4
• Working knowledge of Python and C#
• Solid understanding of Blueprint and how to interface it to C++

Elevation are a remote first studio, work from anywhere in the UK to help them push the boundaries of VR with cutting edge technology and the support of their established VR expertise from the wider nDreams group.