Senior Gameplay Programmer (CONTRACT)

Far Coder; Northern (KY); Hybrid; USD 236,947,000 - 286,541,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Medical insurance

Dental insurance

Vision insurance

Remote work options

Job summary

Insomniac Games is seeking a Senior Gameplay Programmer for a 12-month contract, offering remote work in the USA. The role emphasizes enemy, boss, and ally behavior features, with extensive C++ use and a focus on performance and memory management.

Collaboration with content teams and mentorship of junior staff are core expectations. The team values technical expertise, initiative, and clear communication, with a digital-first culture supporting in-office, remote, and hybrid arrangements.

Qualifications

• Experience delivering features in enemy, boss, or ally behaviors.
• Strong C++ skills with deep understanding of performance.
• Knowledge of memory management and system interfaces.
• Solid 3D math and linear algebra foundations for game tech.
• User-centered design mindset for gameplay experiences.
• Ability to articulate feature trade-offs and advocate improvements.

Responsibilities

• Collaborate across teams to drive player experience and feature quality, focusing on enemy/player interactions.
• Mentor junior staff through code reviews and technical guidance.
• Create flexible, scalable enemy behavior systems across environments.
• Architect simple yet scalable systems without sacrificing extensibility.
• Accurately estimate work, track tasks, and communicate progress.
• Understand complex existing systems and how they interrelate; extend as needed.
• Drive new feature and architecture development in enemy behavior areas.

Skills

Enemy/Boss/Ally behaviors

C++

Memory management

Performance optimization

3D math & linear algebra

Player-centered design

Feature ownership & mentoring

Tools

REST

Scala

Job description

Senior Gameplay Programmer (CONTRACT)

Insomniac Games is hiring a remote candidate for Senior Gameplay Programmer (CONTRACT). This is a full time position. Work location: USA. The role typically involves technologies such as REST, Medical, Scala. This is a 12 month contract. This position is for temporary engagement through our staffing partner, Yoh Enterprise Solutions. Insomniac is looking for a Senior Gameplay Programmer (Contract).

In this role you’ll collaborate closely with our content teams as we design, implement and maintain industry leading experiences, with a heavy focus on enemy, boss and ally behaviors. A Senior Gameplay Programmer anticipates design needs and player expectations and leverages their experience to provide feedback on code quality, user experience, and performance throughout the course of development. We value ownership, technical expertise, initiative, and effective communication. At Insomniac, we've embraced a digital-first culture, and support in-office, remote and hybrid working arrangements.

We’re passionate about creating robust, scalable systems for AAA games and delivering outstanding new player experiences while fostering employee well-being!

Essential duties and responsibilities

Collaborate across teams to drive player experience and feature quality with a focus on Enemy<>Player interactions. Act as a subject matter expert on our enemy and boss teams, providing mentorship/assistance to more junior staff through code reviews and participation in relevant special interest groups. Create features and systems that can work flexibly and dynamically across diverse environments and situations. Architect and implement systems that are as simple as possible without compromising scalability and extensibility. Accurately estimate assigned work, contribute to efforts to ensure work is in scope, and proactively update team on task status. Understand complex existing systems and how they interact. Expand or create new systems as needed to deliver on the promise of our features. Work across teams to understand how our internal customers use the tools and systems that we develop to deliver great gameplay experiences. Drive new feature and architecture development within enemy behavior systems.

Skills you should bring to this role

• Prior experience owning and delivering features in the areas of enemy, boss, or ally behaviors
• Extensive C++ skills
• Knowledge of memory management, performance optimization, systems interfaces, and other programming principles and best practices.
• Knowledge of mathematical concepts, particularly 3D math and visualization using linear algebra
• An eye for player-centered design
• Ability and willingness to articulate strengths and weaknesses of proposed features, and to advocate for alternatives

At SIE, working with our partners, we consider several factors when setting each role’s base pay range, including the competitive benchmarking data for the market and geographic location. Please note that the individual base pay range may vary based on job-related factors which may include knowledge, skills, experience, and location. In addition, this role is eligible for benefit offerings that include medical, dental, and vision. The estimated base pay range for this role is listed below, this is an hourly rate. $82.74—$100 USD

Sony Interactive Entertainment conducts background checks at the offer stage for all new employees (which may include criminal background checks for some roles) and will need to process personal information to support these checks. Please refer to our Candidate Privacy Notice for more information about what personal information we collect, how we use it, who we share it with, and your data protection rights.

Skills required for this role include REST, Medical, Scala, and related tools for day-to-day development. Seniority level: Senior.