Principal Engineer - Project Technical Lead

Hypixel Studios; United States; Remote; USD 80,000 - 150,000; Full time

Job summary

An established industry player is seeking a Principal Engineer to lead technical direction for an exciting new game project. This role offers the opportunity to influence game systems and architecture while mentoring a talented team. With a focus on player engagement and community-driven development, you will tackle complex challenges and foster a culture of creativity and collaboration. If you are passionate about game engineering and eager to make a significant impact in a supportive environment, this is the perfect opportunity for you.

Benefits

Annual Performance Bonus

Quality of Life increases

Christmas closure

Remote work opportunities

Professional growth opportunities

Qualifications

• Extensive experience in game development, particularly in technical leadership roles.
• Strong knowledge of game design patterns and Agile methodologies.

Responsibilities

• Collaborate with leadership to achieve the creative vision for the game.
• Mentor engineers and provide technical leadership across projects.

Skills

Game Development

Technical Leadership

Problem Solving

Collaboration

Agile Development

Software Design Patterns

Education

12+ years of professional game development experience

5+ years building and maintaining proprietary engines

4+ years as a technical leader

Tools

Entity-Component-System (ECS) architecture

Game Engines

Job description

Principal Engineer - Project Technical Lead

Remote or In-Office

We're looking for a Principal Engineer to join our team at Hypixel Studios, which collaborates remotely from around the world. Our members range from industry newcomers to experts with 25+ years of experience. Team members come from a diverse set of backgrounds, but share a common passion for building polished player-focused, community-powered games.

Join us on our mission to bring players together in an inviting, immersive world where they can make their mark. Hytale empowers creative expression across a spectrum of experiences including sandbox adventure, social play, minigames, and creativity using a suite of powerful and accessible tools.

As a Principal Engineer, you will work directly with the Technical Director and Engineering Leads to set architectural direction for the engine, game systems, and gameplay. While this is not a managerial role, it is one of the highest leadership positions on the Hypixel Engineering team. You will have wide-ranging influence across the surface area of the product to identify risks and challenges, and to be instrumental in addressing them.

In some cases, you will improve these problems through direct, hands-on coding, applying your experience to some of the hardest technical challenges in the game. In other cases, your solutions will involve mentoring other engineers to achieve the solutions on their own. In each case, you provide a role model for technical excellence that propels the team forward.

Who you are:

• Passionate about game engineering, and constantly learning new skills to improve your craft.
• A creative problem solver with a history of finding ways to unblock teams while building strong relationships within and across disciplines.
• A mentor and teacher, willing to invest in the next generation of developers to accelerate their growth.
• A T-shaped generalist, with deep expertise in one or more technical domains, and broad experience across a number of other areas of game engineering.
• Steeped in games, so you can apply your innate knowledge of player needs to making smart engineering decisions.

Some of your role:

• Collaborate with Product, Creative, and Design Leadership to make long-term plans to achieve the Creative Vision for Hytale.
• Pair with Engineering and QA leads to steer the Hypixel Technical Vision.
• Mentor Senior Engineers to raise the craft bar and accelerate delivery.
• Work with engineers and customers to architect solutions that meet design and production goals.
• Achieve product outcomes through a combination of hands-on coding, technical leadership, and lateral influence with other disciplines.

Qualifications:

• 12+ years of professional game development experience.
• 5+ years of experience building and maintaining proprietary engines OR in significantly modifying commercial or open source engines.
• 4+ years operating as a technical leader.
• Strong knowledge of common game and software design patterns.
• Strong ability to collaborate with teammates across multiple disciplines.
• Experience with Scrum and Agile development.
• Experience with frequently shipping updates to a live, free-to-play Game-as-a-Service.
• Experience with all phases of game development life cycle (e.g., Prototype, Pre-Production, Production, Live, etc).
• Experience with Entity-Component-System (ECS) architecture and Data-Driven Design for games.
• A personal passion for open world, builder, or survival games.

We can offer:

• Annual Performance Bonus (APB)
• Quality of Life increases
• Christmas closure
• A chance to work on a new game project with an extremely motivated team
• Opportunities to learn and grow personally and professionally
• A stable and secure work environment
• The ability to work remotely

We’re looking for applicants who are self-driven, put players first, and that have a history of making cool stuff. In return, we can offer an environment that values and supports individual creativity and passion and believes in fostering new talent. We recognize the value of diversity in every sense and actively encourage candidates from diverse backgrounds to apply.