Senior Gameplay Programmer

Rare

Location: Twycross, UK

Rare: we're not your typical developer. Over 30 years in the game-making business, every moment has been dedicated to kicking out one beloved title after another. We've tried all manner of new things in that time, but if there's one thing we've truly come to believe, it's the importance of having fun every single day and infusing it into everything we create. That's the core of who we are – check out the Rare Replay collection for three whirlwind decades of evidence.

We strive to keep Rare a fantastic place to work, from its beautiful location and state-of-the-art facilities to a strong focus on work/life balance. If you're a keen gamer, chances are you've already caught wind of our epic shared world pirate adventure Sea of Thieves, revealed at E3 2015 and currently in Technical Alpha phase with players from our Insider Programme. With every day bringing new challenges and discoveries in equal measure, there's never been a more rewarding time to join our daredevil crew!

Role Purpose

Game teams are responsible for generating the concepts and designs for our titles, and for creating the software and art that bring these to life. As a Senior Gameplay Programmer on a game team, you'll work with other Programmers, Designers, Artists, Testers and Production staff to create game features. In this multi-disciplinary environment, everyone has a part to play in providing inspiration and creativity and no-one truly performs just a single role. It doesn't matter whether an idea has come from an intern or a senior member of the team – it's just as worthy of consideration and inclusion in our games.

Senior members of our team often have one or more areas of game programming where they are highly skilled and experienced. However, much more than this, they're characterised by the versatility and strong desire to get involved outside of their original specialism.

In this role, you'll tackle tough problems with little guidance and will help to set the direction of whatever group you're working with. We don't really do that whole 'estimates, schedules and Project Managers' thing, and that means you'll need to be comfortable with helping us figure out what the best thing is we should all be doing right now. We promise that if you're looking to grow, you'll have access to the range of challenges you need to truly broaden your experience. But most of all, you'll be part of a team of friendly, highly talented developers who like nothing better than sharing their own challenges and their expertise with you.

We're big believers in high-quality engineering here at Rare and, since we're developing our products as services, we aim for fast iteration yet with robust methods. This means that we embrace modern development practices such as Continuous Delivery, automated testing, code reviews, pair programming and agile methods (e.g. Kanban). As a Senior Gameplay Programmer you'll lead by example in these areas.

KEY ACCOUNTABILITIES

• Originate, implement and iterate on software features for inclusion in our games or to support the development of our products, in conjunction with other Engineers, Designers, Artists and Testers.
• Identify and surface risks in the areas that are being worked on.
• Build creative solutions to technical problems encountered in the development of our games.
• Continuously work to minimise technical debt and maintenance hazards.
• Devote time to personal improvement in order to further your own game development and programming knowledge.
• Mentor less experienced members of the team as necessary.
• Be part of Rare's culture. Be inquisitive, try things out, break stuff, help people be even better, think like you own the place.

REQUIRED SKILLS AND EXPERIENCE

• Bring at least one area of deep technical expertise to our team. You'll know an awful lot about game (or plain old software) development in general, but this expertise is Your Thing. Graphics, audio programming, artificial intelligence, network sync, web services, engine development, build systems and suchlike. That's not an exhaustive list, by the way, just some examples. Tell us about yours.
• Be enthusiastic about modern development techniques and be demonstrably keen to apply them to games. Test automation is a key element of our approach so a willingness to apply that is essential.
• Demonstrable experience in software design, programming and debugging skills in, possibly, a range of languages.

For more on Rare's culture and achievements, see the Rare's website.

If interested, apply via Microsoft Careers