Senior Generalist Engineer (Video Games)

Atari; United States; Remote; USD 110,000 - 130,000; Full time

Job summary

Atari - US (Remote) is seeking a Senior Generalist Engineer to design, build, and refine emulators that run classic games on modern hardware. You’ll design tools and reverse engineer bespoke engines to implement modern quality-of-life improvements.

You’ll collaborate with engineers, producers, and QA to optimize performance, ensure compatibility, and deliver a great player experience. Strong C/C++ skills and remote collaboration are essential in our distributed team.

Qualifications

• 5–8 years of generalist engineering experience in game dev.
• Excellent C/C++ skills and strong understanding of CPU/GPU architecture.
• Experience building and optimizing cross-platform software.
• Clear communicator in a remote team and proactive problem solving.
• Experience with reverse engineering and debugging tools such as Ghidra.
• Genuine passion for retro games and emulation.

Responsibilities

• Own the complete lifecycle of emulators and tools, including development, maintenance, and expansion.
• Maintain CI/CD pipelines, install new tools, update machines, and monitor scripts.
• Optimize games for performance on target platforms.
• Own debugging platform compatibility issues end-to-end.
• Drive reverse engineering for games, patching bugs and adding enhancements.
• Mentor engineers and influence best practices and architecture.

Skills

C/C++ proficiency

Computer architecture

Cross-platform software

Remote collaboration

Reverse engineering

Static recompilation

Tools

Ghidra

Job description

Atari - US (Remote); Implicit Conversions

Job Description: Senior Generalist Engineer

About Us

Implicit Conversions specializes in the high-level emulation of classic and retro games, enabling gamers to experience their favorite classics on modern consoles. With a dedication to preserving gaming history, we combine cutting-edge technology and a passion for gaming to revive cherished games from publisher’s back catalogs.

Our portfolio includes games from the Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection, Rayman 30th Anniversary Edition, Fear Effect 1 and 2, Fighting Force Collection, Milano’s Oddjob Collection, Geppy-X and over a hundred more!

Summary

We’re looking for a creative and skilled Sr. Generalist Engineer to join our team and help bring classic games to life on modern hardware. In this role, you’ll design, build, and refine emulators that make older titles run smoothly and accurately on today’s platforms. You will also write tools to support the team workflows. You will also reverse engineer classic games (often with bespoke custom engines) to implement modern quality-of-life enhancements.

You’ll collaborate closely with engineers, producers, and QA to fine-tune performance, ensure compatibility, and deliver a great player experience. Your work will play a key role in preserving and reintroducing classic games for a whole new generation of players.

Responsibilities

• Own the complete lifecycle of our emulators and tools, including development, maintenance, and expansion.
• Maintain our CI/CD pipeline, install new tools, update machines, write and monitor scripts.
• Optimize games to ensure they are performant on target platforms.
• Own the end-to-end process for debugging platform compatibility issues.
• Drive the complete reverse engineering process for games—from patching bugs and replacing media to adding achievements/trophies and modern enhancements.
• Influence the team’s best practices, propose architectural improvements, and technically mentor other engineers.

Requirements

• 5 - 8 years of generalist engineering experience, with a strong interest or background in video game development.
• Excellent C/C++ skills and a deep understanding of computer architecture, including CPU/GPU behavior and memory management, threading, and SIMD techniques.
• Experience building and optimizing software across multiple platforms .
• Clear communicator who works well in a remote team and takes initiative when solving problems.
• Experience with static recompilation techniques.
• Hands-on experience with reverse engineering and debugging tools such as Ghidra.
• Genuine passion for retro games and emulation.

Bonus Points

• Experience with game emulation or cross-platform ports (commercial or open source like libretro), including creating modifications/patches for classic games.
• Familiarity with assembly languages (such as x86, ARM, or MIPS) and binary analysis.
• Understanding of modern GPU rendering pipelines (DX12, Metal, Vulkan, etc.)

Target: $110k - $130k