General Gameplay Programmer

United States Digital Space LLC; Basingstoke; On-site; GBP 50,000 - 70,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

On-site parking

Company pension

Sick pay

Team lunch and snack days

Travel season ticket loan

Job summary

The company Limited is seeking a General Gameplay Programmer to join the core engineering team building a large-scale real-time strategy game on-site in the United Kingdom. You will work on stable, high-performance gameplay systems, networking, tools, and engine infrastructure, contributing to a single, cohesive codebase.

You should bring 5+ years of games programming, a shipped title, and deep knowledge of C# (C++) with engine architectures, profiling, and memory management.

Qualifications

• 5+ years professional programming experience in the games industry.
• At least one shipped title from a recognised game studio.
• Strong knowledge of C#; C++ experience is a significant plus.
• Solid understanding of game engine architecture.
• Experience with performance profiling and optimisation.
• Strong debugging skills in complex, multi-system codebases.
• Understanding of memory management, data-oriented design and threading.
• UK-based or willing to relocate.

Responsibilities

• Implement and maintain core gameplay, simulation and engine systems.
• Profile and optimise CPU, memory and network performance.
• Collaborate on simulation architecture and replay systems.
• Build internal tools for design, content and QA workflows.
• Contribute to multiplayer netcode and server infrastructure.
• Maintain coding standards, documentation and code review practices.
• Solve hard problems involving large datasets, concurrency and numerical precision.

Job description

Job Posting — General Gameplay Programmer

Date posted: July 2026

Pay: £50,000.00 - £70,000.00 per year

Job description: General Programmer

Status: Accepting applications — awaiting seed funding close before formal offers

Company: the company Limited

Location: United Kingdom

Work arrangement: On-site, full-time

Salary: Competitive (based on experience)

Benefits: On-site parking, company pension, sick pay, team lunch and snack days, travel season ticket loan

Start date: Month 1 of seed funding

About the Role

You will join the core engineering team building a large-scale real-time strategy game. You will work on systems that must remain stable, consistent and fast under heavy load — gameplay systems, networking, tools and engine infrastructure all within one codebase.

This is not:

• Front-end web development or business applications


• Blueprint-only scripting without engine-level understanding


• Lightweight mobile or hyper-casual game development

This is:

• Hardcore systems programming for a large-scale PC game


• Performance‑critical code running under heavy load


• Simulation, networking, rendering integration and tools


• Problem‑solving at the intersection of mathematics, memory layout and parallel execution

Quality benchmark

You should have shipped at least one title at a recognised studio and be comfortable reading, writing and debugging complex C# or C++ systems. We are looking for engineers who think in terms of throughput, correctness and long‑term maintainability.

Relevant reference titles

Supreme Commander, Sins of a Solar Empire, StarCraft, Factorio, Dyson Sphere Program — games where scale, persistence and simulation consistency matter.

Responsibilities

• Implement and maintain core gameplay, simulation and engine systems


• Profile and optimise CPU, memory and network performance


• Collaborate on simulation architecture and replay systems


• Build internal tools for design, content and QA workflows


• Contribute to multiplayer netcode and server infrastructure


• Maintain coding standards, documentation and code review practices


• Solve hard problems involving large datasets, concurrency and numerical precision

Requirements

Essential:

• 5+ years professional programming experience in the games industry


• At least one shipped title from a recognised game studio


• Strong knowledge of C#; C++ experience is a significant plus


• Solid understanding of game engine architecture


• Experience with performance profiling and optimisation


• Strong debugging skills in complex, multi-system codebases


• Understanding of memory management, data‑oriented design and threading


• UK-based or willing to relocate

Desirable:

• Experience with Unity or Unreal Engine


• Degree in Computer Science, Mathematics, Physics or related field


• Strong mathematical background, especially linear algebra, geometry and numerical methods


• Experience with consistent simulation, lockstep multiplayer or replay systems


• Graphics programming, rendering pipelines or shader experience


• Networking and multiplayer server experience


• Build systems, CI/CD and tooling experience


• Version control expertise (Git or Perforce)

What to Include in Your Application

• CV with project history and shipped titles


• Portfolio or code samples (GitHub, personal site, or shared repository)


• Brief technical response: describe the most challenging performance or consistency problem you have solved in a shipped game and how you approached it


• Short technical submission: provide pseudocode and a short explanation describing how you would design and implement a major RTS system (for example: unit selection, pathfinding, order queues, fog of war, or resource management). Include your reasoning for the data structures, performance considerations and how the system scales.


• References from previous studios or leads