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Build Engineer

Established in 2019, Sumo Leamington is led by a team of industry veterans with a wealth of experience in the games industry.

With three core specialisms: service-based games, free to play titles and mobile, the team at Sumo Leamington are focussed on creating games which players keep coming back to – day after day, year after year.

As winners of the TIGA Star Employment Award for 2021, recipients of the GI Biz 2020 Best Places to Work Award and listed as one of the UK’s 100 Best Large Companies to Work for in 2021, Sumo Digital has enjoyed 18 years of stability and growth since its formation in 2003 and continues to strive for excellence across every single project.

The team at Sumo Leamington is growing, and we’re looking for the industry’s brightest stars to help bring a series of incredible projects to life.

Sumo Leamington is hiring a build engineer to support the development team of our exciting original new game, while developing strategies for improving and automating the build and test processes for existing and future games. You will be the first port of call to identify the cause of any build problems and will either resolve those problems yourself or work alongside other team members to help resolve them. You may also develop and refine tests to improve the quality of the QA process.

Build engineers perform a vital role in modern game development teams. Great build systems can improve the working life of everyone on a development team, by ensuring builds are readily available and work being submitted to version control, builds and runs correctly before it ends up in the mainline, ensuring development velocity remains high and minimising the likelihood of the dreaded 'broken build’!

You will be working every day with many of the people on the development team on our Unity-based game, working with all disciplines, including artists, designers, QA, and programmers. You will work with Lead and Senior Programmers and production staff on the game teams who will assist you in planning your work.

You’ll be responsible for ensuring that game packages build reliably and quickly, for all of our multiple target platforms, so that the development team and QA have access to builds in order to play and test the game. (The whole development team gets together regularly to play and stress test the game!).

Key Responsibilities of the role:

• Maintain and develop build scripts for build pipelines.
• Maintain our fleet of build machines, running Windows, Linux and MacOS.
• Ensuring the studio build machines are up-to-date and consistent with the various software they require, such as Unity installations, Python, Git, and many more.
• Administration of Steam to deploy builds to the studio.
• Ensure overnight builds are built and correctly deployed every day to Steam, ready for the QA team to test the mainline and for the development team to whenever necessary. (e.g. Build reviews, playtests, and other scenarios).
• Plan for future build hardware needs as the project scope changes and communicate what hardware (and software) needs to be purchased, to the Technical Director.
• Deployment to mobile devices.
• Learn any new technologies, languages and technical skills as necessary to provide robust build solutions for the Sumo Leamington team.
• Always be friendly and helpful to the team you are supporting.
• Investigate and suggest ways we can improve the build systems and automation of building and testing at Sumo Leamington!
If you think we can do something better, we’d love to hear about it, and maybe we can make it happen.

Essential Experience & Skills:

• A degree in Computer Science or similar.
• 1 year or more of experience in a programming or IT role, where you have experience using scripting on a regular basis.
• Experience with build automation tools, such as TeamCity or Jenkins.
• Experience with build tools, such as MSBuild, Gradle, Make or CMake.
• Familiarity with *nix Terminal scripting (bash or similar) and Windows Command Line scripting (.bat and/or PowerShell scripting).
• Python scripting
• Problem solving technical issues.
• Strong understanding of Git
• Experience in using configuration Markup-Languages, such as JSON, XML, or YAML.
• A desire and ability to learn new languages and technologies to adapt to requirements.

It would be an advantage if you have one or more of the following skills:

• Experience of using Unity, and even better if you have written C# code for Unity.
• Experience of resolving build errors
• Experience or understanding of build pipelines for game consoles.
• Developing test automation scripts and/or tools
• Docker
• Monitoring software (e.g. to detect and report low disc space).
• Integration with IM software, such as Slack or Teams, to report statuses and errors, or other problems such as build machines having low disc space.
• Working with a development team to understand requirements and priorities.
• Creating & maintaining technical documentation. This may be technical proposals, how-to- guides for other development team members, explanations of how systems work, and so on.

Benefits of working at Sumo Leamington Spa!

• Remote first with occasional visits to the office for team members who are able to travel to the office.
• We provide all our developers with top-of-the-range development hardware
• Monthly Studio-wide Learning Day, where everyone can learn new skills which are relevant to their role.
• Work with an incredibly friendly & diverse team.
• A great work/life balance, Sumo Leamington has a zero-crunch policy.
• Many great perks, including regular social events, both IRL (in Leamington Spa) & online (e.g. quiz nights & Escape Rooms).

· Annual Bonus & Annual Salary Reviews

· Electric Car Scheme

· Salary Sacrifice Pension Scheme

· Flexible Working

· 27 Days Holiday, including your birthday a duvet day and Christmas

· Holiday ‘buy and sell’ scheme

· Access to 4,000 Udemy Courses, The Gnomen Workshop, GDC Vault and more

· Enhanced Mat/Paternity & Adoption pay

· Free Life Assurance - 4x Salary

· Free Income Protection Scheme -up to 75%

· Free Dental Insurance

· Supportive Employee Assistance Programme with confidential 24/7/365 helpline & app

· Access remote GP, Mental Health, Physio appointments & medical second opinions

· Additional flexible benefits scheme

· Cycle to Work Scheme

· Mental Health First Aiders

· Payroll Giving Scheme

· Game & Book Libraries

· Long service & project completion awards

· Wrap Parties

· Alternative Travel Prize Draw

· The Sumo GameJam

· Great family events

· Studio clubs, inc. running, board games, film…

· Life Drawing

· Yoga Classes

· Free fruit and drinks

· Employee Referral Bonus

· Career Development

At Sumo, we want to enable everyone to bring their full, authentic selves to work every single day. We acknowledge that the games industry is far from perfect and a global organisation with people all over the world, from all kinds of backgrounds, we know it’s part of our duty to provide everyone at Sumo with a safe, accepting and affirming working environment.

We encourage and welcome applicants from all backgrounds.

Sumo Leamington is situated just outside of the town centre and was recently awarded the Games Industry BIZ Best Diversity Award – a testament to its ongoing commitment to creating a home for everyone. The Studio features many onsite facilities – everything needed for the team to create the world’s best games!

Ranked the happiest town to live in two official polls, Leamington Spa is a hidden gem nestled amongst the stunning countryside of Warwickshire and remains a hotspot for talented individuals and creative minds within the games industry. Those living in Leamington Spa can enjoy:

o Local attractions such as Jepson Gardens and the Royal Pump Rooms

o A rich and diverse culture

o An expansive history and stunning architecture

o Picturesque scenery, outstanding gardens and walking routes

o Beautiful museums and galleries

Sumo Digital is an award-winning international family of studios. Recent releases from Sumo Digital studios include: BAFTA-Award winning Sackboy: A Big Adventure, Hood: Outlaws & Legends, Control Ultimate Edition on Google Stadia, Apple Arcade Award-winning Little Orpheus, Hot Shot Racing, WST Snooker and Spyder.