Technical Director

Kinetic Games; Southampton; Hybrid; GBP 90,000 - 150,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Hybrid & Flextime Working

Relocation Package (within the UK only

Annual Bonus

Comprehensive Reward Package

Pension Scheme

Health Insurance

30 days Holiday in Total

Training & Development Budget

Southampton FC Tickets

Job summary

Kinetic Games, Southampton-based independent games studio behind Phasmophobia, is seeking a Technical Director to own the studio's technical direction. You will work with the Game Director and programming leads to shape architecture, standards, and long-term strategy while remaining hands-on when needed.

You will lead multiple teams, assess engines and tools, manage technical risks, and ensure scalable, secure multiplayer systems, contributing to delivery across projects and generations of games.

Qualifications

• Significant professional game development experience with senior technical leadership.
• Experience shipping commercially released games on PC and console.
• Strong hands-on programming and software engineering knowledge.
• Understanding of modern game architecture and development pipelines.
• Knowledge of performance, memory, rendering, networking, build systems, tools.
• Ability to communicate complex technical issues to technical and non-technical stakeholders.

Responsibilities

• Define and maintain the studio's overall technical vision and strategy.
• Provide technical leadership to ensure projects have architecture, standards and plans.
• Oversee major technical decisions for long-term maintainability and scalability.
• Identify technical risks early and resolve them with teams.
• Maintain understanding of the technical health of Phasmophobia.
• Establish engineering standards, practices and review processes.
• Review major architectural decisions and challenge where needed.
• Support senior engineers with complex technical problems.
• Ensure performance, stability, networking and platform requirements are met.
• Collaborate across disciplines to align tech with design, art, audio, QA, and production.
• Partner with Production on scope, technical investment and delivery.
• Decide when technical debt should be addressed to reduce long-term risk.
• Evaluate new technologies, engines, middleware and workflows for improvement.
• Help define the technical direction of future Kinetic Games projects.
• Contribute to engineering recruitment and workforce planning.
• Develop Programming Leads and foster a strong engineering culture.
• Ensure back-end multiplayer security and best practices.

Skills

Senior leadership

Hands-on programming

Game development

Performance optimization

Networking systems

Build systems

Multi-team leadership

Communication

Tools

Unity

Unreal Engine

Job description

About Kinetic Games

We’re an independent games studio best known for creating Phasmophobia, enjoyed by millions of players worldwide. Our team is passionate, creative, and collaborative and we’re looking for someone equally enthusiastic about games to join our growing team.

We’re a small but fast growing, friendly team that values creativity, openness, and personal growth.

Whether you’re helping various departments or talking about your favourite horror game, you’ll be part of a supportive environment where passion and curiosity are celebrated. You’ll be joining a small but ambitious team where your ideas are valued, your growth is supported, and your development truly matters.

Diversity, equity, and inclusion are important to how we work together every day. We aim to build a team with diverse experiences, perspectives, and backgrounds. We believe great games start with an inclusive environment where everyone can contribute, grow, and succeed. Applications from all qualified candidates are encouraged. Equal opportunities are provided throughout our recruitment and employment practices.

If you require any reasonable adjustments during the recruitment process, please let us know. We'll work with you to understand your needs and provide appropriate support wherever reasonably practicable.

About the role:

As Technical Director, you will own the studio-wide technical direction at Kinetic Games, working closely with the Game Director, Development Director, Programming Leads and other discipline leadership.

You will provide technical oversight across projects, ensure engineering teams are set up to succeed, identify and manage technical risks, and help establish the standards and practices required as the studio continues to scale.

This is not purely an architectural or advisory position. We are looking for someone who remains technically credible and actively engaged with development, able to investigate difficult problems, review technical solutions and provide practical guidance when teams need support.

You will also play an important role in shaping our longer-term technology strategy, including evaluating engines, platforms, tools and development practices for Phasmophobia.

Your responsibilities will include:

• Define and maintain the studio's overall technical vision and strategy.
• Provide technical leadership to ensure projects have appropriate architecture, engineering standards and technical plans.
• Provide oversight of major technical decisions and ensure solutions support long-term maintainability and scalability.
• Identify technical risks early and work with teams to resolve them before they impact development.
• Maintain a strong understanding of the technical health of Phasmophobia.
• Establish engineering standards, development practices and technical review processes.
• Review and challenge major architectural decisions where appropriate.
• Support Programming Leads and senior engineers with complex technical problems.
• Ensure performance, stability, networking, platform requirements and scalability are considered throughout development.
• Work across disciplines to resolve technical dependencies and ensure technology supports design, art, audio, QA and production requirements.
• Partner with Production and Development leadership when making decisions around scope, technical investment and delivery.
• Help determine when technical debt should be addressed and ensure it does not create unacceptable long-term risk.
• Evaluate new technologies, engines, middleware, tools and workflows where they could improve development.
• Help define the technical direction of future Kinetic Games projects.
• Contribute to engineering recruitment, team structure and workforce planning.
• Help develop Programming Leads while building a strong engineering culture across the studio.
• Ensure strong security and best practices are used for back-end multiplayer services.

Requirements:

• Significant professional game development experience, including experience in a senior technical leadership role.
• Experience shipping commercially released games on PC and console.
• Strong hands-on programming and software engineering knowledge.
• Strong understanding of modern game architecture and development pipelines.
• Strong knowledge of areas such as performance, memory, rendering, networking, build systems, tools and platform development.
• Ability to understand unfamiliar technical systems quickly and challenge technical decisions constructively.
• Experience providing technical direction across multiple teams or large multidisciplinary projects.
• Experience working effectively with Programming Leads, Principal Engineers and other senior technical staff.
• Strong understanding of the relationship between engineering decisions, production constraints and game quality.
• Ability to communicate complex technical issues clearly to both technical and non-technical stakeholders.
• Comfortable making difficult technical decisions and taking accountability for their outcomes.

Desirable Experience

• Experience working on multiplayer and live service games.
• Experience supporting a successful live game.
• Experience developing games across PC and current generation consoles (PlayStation, Xbox or Nintendo platforms).
• Experience with Unity and/or Unreal Engine.

Benefits & Perks

• Comprehensive Reward Package
• Enhanced Employer Match Pension Scheme
• Annual Bonus
• Weekly Free Team Lunches
• Regular Social Events
• Hybrid & Flextime Working
• Access to Southampton Football Club Tickets - subject to availability and sponsor allocation
• Relocation Package (within the UK only)
• Electric Vehicle Car Scheme
• Employee of the Month Vouchers
• Personal Wellbeing Allowance
• Recruitment Referral Scheme
• Training & Development Budget
• Training & Career Development
• Vitality Health Insurance
• Aviva Life Insurance
• 30 days Holiday in Total
• Christmas Studio Shutdown