System Era Softworks

Lead Graphics Engineer 

System Era is searching for a creative and skilled engineer to lead graphics development at the studio! 

As Lead Graphics Engineer at System Era, you have the opportunity to drive rendering technology forward for the company. You have a passion for collaborating with an art team to develop visual targets that inspire the team and the technical skills needed to make those targets a reality. With a broad understanding of rendering techniques, you understand the complex trade-offs each presents in terms of implementation time, runtime performance, visual quality, and artist workflows. In addition, you understand that visual style and quality strongly affect gameplay, and that the nature of common gameplay scenarios can inform the effectiveness and impact of a given rendering technique. This motivates you to collaborate with designers and gameplay engineers to ensure that gameplay and visuals are cohesive and mutually supportive of one another. Putting all these pieces together, you pick the combination of techniques and pipelines that is most aligned with the project’s goals given the resources available. 

Using a procedural world generation pipeline, fully dynamic gameplay environments, targeting a wide range of hardware, and keeping our team small are priorities that present a unique set of challenges for us at System Era. You share our view that managing complexity and finding simple, elegant solutions to the problems at hand are key to our success. You don’t hesitate to learn the hardware and toolsets for each platform and plan for how your systems will scale across the target range. As a senior leader on the engineering team, you set a positive example with your commitment to quality, provide valuable input in technical discussions, and work to educate the team in your area of expertise. 

Due to COVID-19, the System Era team is currently working remotely. Relocation to Seattle once it is safe and reasonable to do so is preferred, but permanently remote work is negotiable for this role. Employees in the Seattle area will continue to enjoy hybrid in-office and remote work options even after restrictions on in-office work are lifted. 

Compensation includes salary, benefits with full medical and dental coverage, 401k with company match, participation in profit sharing, and relocation assistance. We look for candidates who value joining a team with a diverse set of backgrounds, experiences, interests, and viewpoints. 

Responsibilities 

• Collaborate with the art department to develop visual targets and technical requirements for System Era’s rendering technologies. 
• Choose the appropriate techniques to execute on our rendering goals, with consideration for trade-offs in implementation time, runtime performance, visual quality, and overall importance to the artistic vision. 
• Work with our technical artist to develop pipelines for art assets which maximize the efficiency of the art team’s workflows. 
• Lead and own the development of rendering technology based on the established technical requirements, chosen techniques, and desired workflows. 

• Ensure that rendering frame rate targets are hit across all target platforms. 
• Educate the team on best practices for using rendering technologies, and work with the rest of the engineering team to develop the APIs between rendering and other game systems as needed. 
• Contribute to System Era’s overall engineering excellence by participating in technical design discussions and regular engineering team meetings. 

Qualifications 

• 7+ years of professional experience as a game engineer, with shipped titles on at least two generations of console platforms. 
• Excellent C/C++ programming and debugging skills. 

• Strong shader programming skills. 
• Excellent understanding of profiling tools and optimization techniques. 
• Deep understanding of game engine components and architecture, particularly rendering and asset pipelines. 
• Deep understanding of modern hardware architectures, especially as they relate to rendering technology. 
• Comprehensive understanding of common rendering techniques and their applications. 
• Strong 3D math skills. 

• Excellent written and verbal communication skills. 

Nice to Have 

• Unreal Engine 4 experience. 
• Familiarity with data-oriented design paradigms. 
• Experience developing and working with non-rendering low-level systems, such as memory allocators, threading architecture, and/or physics engines. 

• Experience working with procedural world generation systems. 
• Experience working on multiplayer games.