Principal Game Engine Engineer

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:

Own 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 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.

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.