Senior Engine Programmer
Job Description
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thatgamecompany designs and develops artistically crafted, broadly accessible video games that push the boundaries of interactive entertainment. We respect our players and want to contribute meaningful, enriching experiences that touch and inspire them.
We seek talent that values integrity and personal growth within an environment of intense collaboration and experimentation.
Our mission is to create timeless entertainment that makes positive changes to the human psyche worldwide. If you’ve been wanting to have a positive impact on people’s lives and the creative challenges associated with doing something different and unique, then come help us shine brighter together.
As a Senior Engine Programmer at thatgamecompany, you will be a highly valued member of a world-class Engine and Game Development team. For the right candidate, there are ample opportunities for fun engineering challenges: Performance (CPU and GPU), Cross-platform support, Netcode, Multithreading, Audio, and Rendering, just to name a few. You will be surrounded by knowledgeable peers who will coach and mentor you as you grow into a highly impactful member of the team.
Must haves:
- Experience developing a game engine (at work, school, or as a personal project)
- 5+ years of technical engineering experience with C or C++
- Find the idea of working in a custom game engine more fun than working in a Big Engine™
- Demonstrated ability to execute longer-term projects in complicated code bases with multiple stakeholders.
Nice to haves:
- 5 to 10+ years of experience in game development or similar 3D media using C++
- Have a pet engine project or game (ideally with public code that we can view)
- Clear communication skills, ability to work closely with other high-caliber engineers and artists.
Responsibilities:
- Design, implement, and update core systems of the TGC game engine
- Collaborate closely with various disciplines, including artists, designers, and other engineers, to gather requirements, deliver and iterate on features
- Help monitor, identify and troubleshoot issues and inefficiencies to increase the overall effectiveness of the development team.
Perks:
• Paid Time Off, Holidays, and Two Weeks Winter Break
• Employees and their dependents get medical, dental, and vision coverage, regardless of their level, tenure, or position within the company.
• Pet Insurance for those who need it too.
• Compassionate leave for employees who need to take care of their family members
• Pre-tax wellness stipend
• Pre-tax work from home stipend
• Access our savings plan (401K program) with company match
• Mental health resources including Headspace membership and Employee Assistance Program (EAP)
• Discount portal for everyday goods and services
• Employee inclusive and diversity initiatives such as Grow Together
• Support for personal professional development
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thatgamecompany
View Company Profilethatgamecompany (operating under thatgamecompany.com, legally thatgamecompany, Inc.) is the premier, award-winning independent video game development studio, interactive art pioneer, and emotional design powerhouse engineered to act as the definitive, high-velocity creator of timeless, broadly accessible, and deeply enriching digital experiences designed to inspire human connection globally. Founded in 2006 by visionary game designers Jenova Chen and Kellee Santiago during their graduate studies at the University of Southern California's Interactive Media Program, the studio completely eliminates the severe systemic limitations of mainstream gaming—where industry landscapes prioritize repetitive loop mechanics, high-frictional microtransactions, and hyper-violent competition at the expense of genuine emotional depth, narrative beauty, and universal demographic inclusion—by deploying an artistic, experimental development matrix. Moving far beyond traditional, transaction-heavy publishing models or generic action-driven mobile games, thatgamecompany natively unifies deep atmospheric world-building, minimalist non-verbal communication frameworks, high-throughput multiplayer matchmaking layers, and evolutionary social gameplay into a high-availability global cross-platform ecosystem. The studio first captured critical acclaim through a historic, exclusive three-game development deal with Sony Computer Entertainment, producing a legendary trilogy of titles—flOw, Flower, and Journey—that permanently redefined video games as an institutionalized art medium, culminating in Journey winning multiple Game of the Year awards and becoming the first video game score nominated for a Grammy Award. Scaling its design philosophies into the live-service era, the company launched its massive multiplayer social indie hit, Sky: Children of the Light, which has amassed hundreds of millions of downloads worldwide and broke the Guinness World Record for the most users in a virtual concert. Validating its massive commercial and cultural acceleration, the studio secured a monumental $160 million growth financing round led by prominent global asset managers TPG and Sequoia Capital, pushing its institutional market valuation to $1.9 billion. Under the hood, its technology core utilizes sophisticated custom cross-platform rendering engines, secure asynchronous social networking loops, and specialized community moderation architectures designed to cultivate safe, empathetic online environments without reducing operational performance or gameplay velocity. What sets thatgamecompany apart is its uncompromising dedication to replacing fragmented, transaction-driven player habits with absolute emotional resonance, timeless creative integrity, and artistic depth; by bridging the gap between performance-intensive online multiplayer systems and the absolute pinnacle of human empathy, the enterprise remains the definitive cornerstone of modern algorithmic game development and global interactive entertainment transformation.
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