Lead Engineer

Hypersonic Laboratories; East Horsley; Hybrid; GBP 70,000 - 90,000; Full time

Job summary

A leading company in the gaming industry is seeking a Lead of Engineering to take technical ownership of HELIX, their in-house multiplayer game creation framework. This hybrid role involves hands-on coding and leading a core team of engineers. The ideal candidate has over 10 years of experience, deep expertise in Unreal Engine, and a passion for building scalable systems. You will collaborate with various departments to ensure the success of HELIX, all while fostering a strong engineering culture.

Qualifications

• 10+ years of professional experience as a game/engine programmer.
• At least 3 shipped titles built with Unreal Engine.
• Deep expertise in Unreal Engine, including networking and gameplay systems.

Responsibilities

• Acting as technical owner of HELIX, setting direction and standards.
• Leading and mentoring the engineering team.
• Contributing code daily in a hands-on leadership role.

Skills

Technical Leadership

Game Programming

Networking

Gameplay Programming

DevOps

Tools

Unreal Engine

CI/CD

Web Technologies

Job description

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Hypersonic Laboratories provided pay range

This range is provided by Hypersonic Laboratories. Your actual pay will be based on your skills and experience — talk with your recruiter to learn more.

Base pay range

At Hypersonic Laboratories, we're looking for a Lead of Engineering to take technical ownership of HELIX, our in-house open-world multiplayer game creation framework.

The role is hybrid, involving 2 days a week at our Guildford, UK studio.

Who are we?

Hypersonic Laboratories is building HELIX, the ultimate open-world multiplayer sandbox. We are a diverse, experienced, international team and have raised $11M from top gaming VCs.

About the role

We’re seeking an experienced, product-focused technical leader to take charge of the technical vision and execution of HELIX. You’ll operate as a founding engineer or technical cofounder, helping scale our modular, multiplayer-first sandbox framework built on Unreal Engine 5.

This is a hands-on leadership position: you’ll be actively coding while also working closely with production to manage a small core team of engineers and scripters, guiding the development process, and ensuring our systems meet the scale and ambition of our platform.

The ideal candidate would have 10+ years of experience and at least 3 shipped Unreal Engine titles, deep Unreal expertise (including networking, plugins, and tools), and a passion for building powerful and extensible systems. You’ll work directly with leadership to ensure HELIX ships on time, on spec, and with excellence.

What you will be doing

• Acting as technical owner of HELIX, setting the direction and standards across all technical systems.
• Leading and mentoring the engineering team, providing code reviews, technical guidance, and architectural oversight.
• Contributing code daily—this is a hands-on leadership role.
• Overseeing and implementing systems across gameplay, networking, tooling, UI, online services, backend, and DevOps.
• Collaborating with other departments (gameplay, art, production) to ensure engine features meet evolving needs.
• Spearheading the adoption of AI/ML-driven workflows and tooling across the engineering org.
• Recruiting, onboarding, and mentoring technical team members.
• Maintaining a high level of responsiveness, adaptability, and technical excellence in a fast-paced environment.
• Championing engineering culture, team cohesion, and sustainable development practices.
• Supporting with hiring to grow the engineering team according to project needs and studio values.

What we will need from you

• 10+ years of professional experience as a game/engine programmer, including technical leadership on shipped titles or platforms.
• At least 3 shipped titles built with Unreal Engine.
• Deep expertise in Unreal Engine—including networking, gameplay systems, Lyra framework, motion matching, custom plugins/tools, and engine extensions.
• Proven experience building and scaling engineering teams.
• Strong background in gameplay programming, multiplayer architecture, and online subsystem integrations (e.g. EOS, Steam, etc).
• Competence in backend systems, scalable services, and DevOps pipelines.
• Proficiency in CI/CD, debugging, and performance optimization.
• Familiarity with web technologies (HTML/CSS/JS) for platform or dashboard/launcher related features.
• Passion for empowering creators through extensibility, modularity, and clean systems architecture.

Nice to have

• Experience with UGC platforms, modding frameworks, or live service ecosystems.
• Experience building or contributing to game development tools for teams or communities.
• Previous work in fast-moving startup or small team environments.
• You thrive in fast-paced, collaborative environments where efficiency, agility, and a strong team culture lead to significant and meaningful impact.
• You enjoy working closely with other disciplines, wearing multiple hats, and iterating quickly.
• You’re excited by ambitious creative tools and believe in enabling others through technology.

Apply for the job

Ready to join our team as our new Engineering Lead? Then we'd love to hear from you!

Seniority level

• Seniority level

  Director

Employment type

• Employment type

  Full-time

Job function

• Industries

  Computer Games

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