Principal C++ Physics Programmer for Real-Time Simulation

Code Metal; Boston (MA); On-site; USD 150,000 - 210,000; Full time

Job summary

Code Metal is building the next-generation wargaming and decision-support platform for the DoW. We seek a Physics Programmer to bring the performance standards of commercial game development to our engine, architecting and building the core C++ runtime that executes physics, behavior, and mission models across teams.

You will own engine components, data-oriented design, and multithreaded execution with a focus on deterministic replay, memory efficiency, and scalable simulation.

Qualifications

• Extensive professional C++ development experience in production software.
• Experience in commercial game development or performance-constrained real-time environments.
• Ownership of foundational engine systems beyond gameplay features.
• Experience with physics engines, ECS, or runtime scheduling.
• Ability to optimize for CPU, memory, latency and frame budgets.
• Experience using profiling tools to diagnose performance issues.

Responsibilities

• Architect and implement the core C++ runtime behind a large-scale wargaming platform.
• Own the structure, performance, and long-term health of the engine codebase.
• Design and evolve an ECS architecture for large numbers of simulation entities.
• Build data-oriented storage, entity lifecycle, queries, and scheduling.
• Define engine interfaces for physics, AI, sensors, weapons, behavior, and environment models.
• Create stable extension points for model developers without destabilizing the core.
• Design simulation loops, time stepping, and deterministic replay.
• Develop multithreaded and task-based execution systems for safe parallelism.
• Optimize memory layout, serialization, and data movement.
• Profile and improve CPU usage, memory, latency, and throughput against budgets.
• Build spatial indexing, collision candidate, visibility, and proximity infrastructure.
• Integrate external physics and mathematical models into a consistent runtime.
• Develop checkpointing, save/restore, and reproducible replay systems.
• Establish architecture for networked/distributed simulation with ownership and state transfer.
• Build tooling for model developers to inspect entities and debug performance.
• Lead engine design reviews and mentor other programmers.
• Remain hands-on in implementation, profiling, and code review.

Skills

C++ development

Performance-critical

Engine design

Multithreading

Data-oriented design

Profiling

APIs/SDKs

Job description

Code Metal is building the next-generation wargaming and decision-support platform for the DoW. We seek a Physics Programmer to bring the performance standards of commercial game development to our engine, architecting and building the core C++ runtime that executes physics, behavior, and mission models across teams.

You will own engine components, data-oriented design, and multithreaded execution with a focus on deterministic replay, memory efficiency, and scalable simulation.