As our Lead Game Engineer, you will...Team Leadership- Manage, mentor, and grow a team of game engineers: set goals, run 1:1s, give feedback, and support career development.
- Plan, recruit, and interview technical roles within the Gameplay Engineering team.
- Own team processes: planning, code review standards, on-call/bug triage, and how work gets scoped and estimated.
- Create a healthy, high-trust engineering culture at a small-studio scale.
Hands-on Development- Review pull requests and unblock engineers on hard technical problems.
- Debug and resolve complex cross-system issues, especially around multiplayer sync, performance, and stability.
- Prototype or build out gameplay systems directly when the team needs an extra pair of hands.
Cross-functional Collaboration- Partner closely with game design, art, and production to scope features and keep engineering aligned with the creative vision.
- Partner with the Technical Director to create a realistic technical roadmap.
- Communicate engineering status, risks, and trade-offs clearly to studio leadership.
What You'll Bring- 6+ years of professional game development experience, with shipped title(s) built in Unreal Engine.
- 2+ years of experience directly managing or leading engineers (formal management, tech lead, or team lead experience).
- Strong C++ skills and deep familiarity with Blueprint workflows.
- Hands-on experience with online multiplayer systems, including replication, client-server architecture, netcode, and the performance/debugging challenges that come with them.
- Solid grasp of software architecture and design patterns, and the judgment to know when to apply them versus keep things simple.
- Experience working cross-functionally with design, art, and production in a real production environment.
- Comfortable operating with high ownership in a lean team where you wear multiple hats.
- Strong communication skills: able to explain technical trade-offs to non-engineers and rally a small team around a plan.
Nice to Have- Experience shipping a live-service or online multiplayer game post-launch (patching, live ops, backend services).
- Experience at an independent or mid-size studio.
- Experience with performance profiling and optimization.
The Team- Reports to the Technical Director.
- Leads the Gameplay Engineering team.
- Partners closely with the Backend Lead, Technical Director, Production, Design, Art, QA, and the broader engineering organization.
Please Note: Applicants must be legally authorized to work in the United States or Canada. Gardens cannot assist with work authorizations or work visas. Applicants must also be willing to work within North American time zones (EST-PST).
Our Interview Process(all interviews are 1 hour video calls on Google Meet unless otherwise noted)
- Step 1: People Operations Introduction
- Step 2: Hiring Manager Interview
- Step 3: Panel Interview (3 - 1 Hour Sections)
- Step 4: Gardeners Debrief
- Step 5: Offer
