Principal Game Engine Team Lead

Salary Range: 160000 to 200000 (Currency: USD) (Pay period: per-year-salary)

Key Attributes:

Innovation Mindset: Passion for pushing the boundaries of real-time physics in interactive simulation.
Leadership & Mentorship: Ability to guide developers, set technical direction for an area, and enforce best practices.
Problem-Solving: Creative and analytical approach to complex simulation challenges.
Communication: Clear articulation of technical concepts to non-technical stakeholders.

Responsibilities:

Run a team that owns the physics architecture: Define data models, simulation loops, solver strategies, and integration points across engine and simulation systems.
Deliver core physics features: Collision detection (broad‑phase/narrow‑phase), entity controllers, vehicle dynamics with an emphasis on orbital mechanics, particles/fluid mechanics (with an emphasis on atmospheric dynamics).
Integrate with simulation logic (gameplay) & animation: Build physics‑driven interactions, authoring tools, and runtime hooks (e.g., inverse kinematics, state machines, event systems).
Performance ownership: Profile, optimize, and budget frame time and memory across platforms; lead multi-threading/Job System/SIMD efforts; evaluate GPU compute opportunities.
Stability & robustness: Establish test suites, golden scenarios, and verification and validation practices; reduce edge‑case instability (stacking, tunneling, jitter, constraint drift).
Tooling & workflow: Build/debug tools, visualizers, probes, and authoring pipelines that accelerate designer iteration and QA efficiency.
Cross‑functional leadership: Partner with back-end, AI, data pipeline, and platform teams; communicate constraints/trade‑offs; align milestones with production.
Mentorship & standards: Guide engineers via code reviews, design docs, and coding standards; cultivate a high bar for craft, documentation, and reproducibility.
Quality & live support: Own crash triage and regression control for physics; support content changes post‑launch without destabilizing the simulation.
Design, implement, and optimize real-time rendering pipelines (e.g., forward, deferred, ray tracing).
Develop and maintain shaders using HLSL, GLSL, ShaderLab, or Shader Graph.
Responsible for graphics API Integration work with low-level APIs like DirectX 11/12, Vulkan, Metal, or OpenGL ES.
Guide junior and mid-level engineers, conduct code reviews, and enforce best practices across studio teams.
Take responsibility for major subsystems (e.g., lighting, post-processing, material systems).
Work closely with artists, designers, and other engineers to align visual goals with technical feasibility.
Help technical artists create efficient content workflows and troubleshoot visual issues.
Translate deep technical topics into actionable insights for studio and platform teams and leadership.

Professional Qualifications:

Education: BS/MS in Computer Science, Software Engineering, Physics, Mathematics (or equivalent practical experience).
Experience:10+ years in real‑time/game physics engineering; 2+ shipped titles with substantial physics ownership (AA/AAA preferred).
Programming: Expert C++ (modern standards), data‑oriented design, memory management, profiling/debugging (VTune, PIX, Nsight, RenderDoc, etc.).
Rigid‑body dynamics,collision detection (GJK, SAT, continuous collision detection/time of impact), integration schemes (semi‑implicit Euler, RK, constraint solvers).
Numerical stability, error control, and performance trade‑offs under real‑time constraints.
Engine Integration: Experience integrating physics with animation (animation blending, IK), gameplay systems, and rendering pipelines.
Performance: Multi-threading/job systems, SIMD/vectorization, cache‑friendly data structures, frame/memory budgeting across platforms.
Collaboration: Proven ability to lead cross‑disciplinary efforts and communicate complex technical topics clearly.

Preferred Qualifications:

15+ years’ experience in Modern Game Engines & Middleware: Unreal Engine (Chaos), Unity (DOTS/Physics), Havok, Bullet, PhysX; custom engine experience strongly preferred.
10+ years’ experience in Advanced Simulation: Fracture systems, granular materials, vehicle tire models, buoyancy/aero effects; GPU compute (CUDA, compute shaders).
Experience with existing physics models and systems integration.
Networking: Deterministic simulation strategies, rollback/prediction, server authority models, cross‑platform latency mitigation.
Console/Platform: Shipping experience on Xbox, PlayStation, Switch, and PC; familiarity with platform TRCs/TCRs and performance certification.
Tooling & Scripting: Python/C#/Lua for tools and editor extensions; in‑engine visualization/debugging overlays.
Optimization Expertise: Broad‑phase structures (sweep-and-prune, BVH), island building, sleeping strategies, CCD tunneling avoidance; job scheduling and affinity tuning.
Content Pipelines: Collaboration with design/tech art to create authoring guidelines for physics assets; LOD strategies for physics complexity.