Systems Engineer

at  PlaySide Studios

OVERVIEW

As a Systems Engineer, you’ll be pivotal in our software team, contributing to an exciting new project. Your deep game systems understanding, tool expertise, and optimized code skills are key. You’ll design, extend, and optimize foundational game systems, collaborating with other disciplines for tailored tools. Your role includes ensuring system robustness and performance, thorough documentation, accurate task breakdowns, and adept issue diagnosis. Your dedication drives project success.

KEY RESPONSIBILITIES:

• Designing, implementing, and maintaining system-level and gameplay-supporting systems.
• Implement systems, interfaces and tools with a focus on scalability, efficiency, and robust functionality using Unreal Engine and C++
• These systems include (and not limited to) gameplay systems, multiplayer systems, and development tools & pipelines.
• Collaborate with Lead Engineers on technical design and feature roll out.
• Work with all departments to understand their requirements and implement systems and tools to meet their needs.
• Creating thorough documentation for the systems and tools being developed.
• Identifying and addressing performance issues to ensure these systems run smoothly on various platforms and hardware configurations.
• Apply engineering principles (e.g., SRP, dependency inversion) and demonstrate proficiency with common data structures and memory management basics.
• Deliver functional, well-tested, and maintainable code.
• Craft consumer-friendly APIs and classes, avoiding overuse of design patterns and applying hardware-related knowledge.
• Develop comprehensive test case plans and define quality metrics for projects.
• Adapt to changing priorities, explore various disciplines, and communicate dependencies while supporting task breakdown and estimation.
• Self-track task time and report discrepancies.
• Maintain clear communication within and outside the team.

WHAT YOU BRING TO THE ROLE:

• Proven experience in video game development, with a strong focus on code quality and performance optimization.
• Proficient in producing comprehensive documentation for new systems and tools, including accurate risk assessments and time estimates.
• Ability to write interfaces that facilitate efficient communication and interaction between systems
• Expertise in writing clean and concise APIs and classes
• Extensive knowledge of engineering principles, data structures, parallelization, and memory management.
• Strong understanding of Data-Oriented Design and its application in optimizing data layouts, memory access patterns, and system performance.
• Strong understanding of ECS architecture and its application in game development
• Solid grasp of contemporary game development processes and the ability to identify opportunities for improvement in tools and pipelines.
• Proficiency in debugging, issue identification, and analyzing debug data.
• Strong understanding of various testing types and Unit Test Frameworks, and adept at instrumentation for performance.
• Ability to balance code for both performance and readability.
• Effective communication of dependencies and support for task breakdown and estimation.