Lead Software Engineer (Graphics)
20 days ago
Job Title: Lead Software Engineer (Graphics)
Team: Graphics
Reporting to: Senior Producer
We are Sports Interactive 🎮
The gaming studio behind: ⚽ Football Manager.
Founded in 1994, Sports Interactive (‘SI’) became a wholly owned subsidiary of SEGA Europe in 2006. Based at the Here East technology hub in Stratford, East London, the SI team continues to expand as we bring our titles to an ever growing audience across an increasing variety of platforms.
To support our growth, we welcome the opportunity to connect with passionate people with the drive to match our ambitions and initiative to realise your individual potential.
Position Overview
Continually improving the visual quality and performance of Football Manager is one of our main goals, and we are looking for an experienced and motivated graphics programmer and software engineer to take the lead graphics role at Sports Interactive.
In this role you will collaborate with multiple teams across the studio as a key member of our team, leading the graphics team and steering the direction of the visuals for our products across all the platforms and devices we support.
We are using Unity as our game engine, so experience in this technology is critical for the role.
Key Responsibilities
- Lead the graphics team, and steer direction to deliver and further enhance the visual quality of Football Manager.
- Manage and organise the graphics team; discuss, assign and monitor work, along with performing technical reviews.
- Support and mentor the graphics team, identifying strengths and weaknesses and suggest training and career development opportunities.
- Author performant graphics and shader code in Unity on multiple platforms across a wide range of devices.
- Deliver high quality visuals within the capabilities of a wide range of devices.
- Identify and build tools to help improve workflows for artists.
- Collaborate with multiple teams in the studio, including working closely with the art team.
- Architect the code base to continually improve quality and performance.
Knowledge, Skills, and Experience
- Professional experience as graphics software engineer, leading a team, having shipped at least one game title.
- Excellent 3D maths skills and technical software engineering background.
- Experience developing and supporting graphics using Unity and the Universal Render Pipeline for multiple platforms.
- Experience and understanding of shader development using Unity supporting multiple platforms.
- Experience with low-level graphics APIs such as DirectX 11 & 12, Metal and Vulkan.
- Knowledge of GPU architectures and graphics techniques.
- Experience and full understanding of the digital content creation asset pipeline from artist tools through Unity and into a build, and ability to identify improvements.
- Experience using C++ native plugins to communicate with Unity’s C# runtime.
- Flexible and dynamic to react to changing requirements.
- Excellent communication skills in both spoken and written form.
- Passion for graphics and graphics programming in games.
Benefits of Working at Sports Interactive:
- A flexible working policy to best suit you and your team. 🏠
- Subsidised mental health, therapy and coaching sessions are available. 😌
- Contributory Pension Scheme (up to 7% of annual salary). 🏦
- Free onsite evening bar in the Sports Interactive London HQ. 🍹
- A well-stocked breakfast bar with cereals, fruits, teas, and coffees. 🥣
- Regular events in collaboration with our partnered football clubs. 🏟
- Access to our on-site physical and massage therapist services. 💆
- Multiple clubs and societies to join e.g., book club and art workshops. 🫶
- Free access to games released under the SEGA Europe umbrella. 🕹
- A range of Gym Membership options through our Benefits partners. 🏋
- Fully Subsidised Healthcare and Dental Plans. 🦷
- Free Travel Insurance for yourself and your family. ✈
- A personalized football shirt upon passing probation. 👕
What is it like to work here?
We approach everything with passion, whether that is making our mark on the gaming and football industries or doing our bit for the world around us. We want to share that outlook with everyone who shows up to work here each day.
For us, talent wins games, but teamwork wins titles. Collaboration is the key to constantly topping our best. We believe everyone matters, no matter which part of the business you are in, so we encourage and support our people in driving your own growth and realising your full potential. But, more than anything else, we are a team. A team with a down-to-earth dynamic, that has a lot of fun doing what we do.
And whether that’s technical tweaks or fine-tuning our creative process, everything is geared at producing the best game possible for our players. To do that, we need to be tenacious and move quickly, and not be afraid of switching things up. It is these principles that have enabled us to produce a game that has defined year after year, and that will continue to push us for many more to come.
Our flexible working culture gives you the opportunity to optimise your workload, with in-office, hybrid, and remote working options dependent on role. So, if you want a work/life balance, we are behind you. Because while we live to create extraordinary games, we know that is not all you have got going on. You can trust that we always keep things in perspective, fostering an environment where work can be more than just a job.
We’re also a London Living Wage employer, boast one of the lowest staff turnover rates in the industry and are proud to have won the ‘Best Places to Work’ award by Gamesindustry.biz in 2023.
We are proud to be an equal opportunities employer and encourage applications from any relevant candidate irrespective of sex, race, disability, age, sexual orientation, gender reassignment, marriage or civil partnership, pregnancy or maternity, religion, or belief.
SI is proudly a Disability Confident Committed employer, and we are dedicated to ensuring our recruitment process is inclusive and accessible. Our studio has disabled access and facilities but please ensure you advise us if you require any other reasonable adjustments to be made to support you during the recruitment process.
Our Values:
- Keep collaborating: We know that talent wins games, but teamwork wins titles. We encourage a level playing field, where no matter the department, title or niche, ideas belong to everyone. And because we have each other's backs, no-one needs to look over their shoulder. It's what brings us success, without the stuffiness.
- Be agile: The football world never stands still and neither does the entertainment industry. We have to stay ahead as the beautiful game changes and keeps innovating. We can't be afraid to switch things up. To pitch 'out-there' thinking and put ourselves out there. Think fast and adapt faster.
- Stay Tenacious: We don't overlook the details. Think dog. Think bone. Whether it's technical tweaks or fine-tuning our creative process, everything we do is about producing the best game possible. In other words, never settle. It took tenacious spirits to create a game that defined decade after decade. It'll take tenacious people to push us for decades to come.
- Show Ambition: We're not lone wolves, we know a pack mentality makes magic happen. But it doesn’t hurt to let your own drive lead the way. That energy is infectious... show up and share it with your team. Make the studio's purpose personal. Your individual outlook can give everyone the edge.
- Bring the Passion: Don't be fooled, what we do is not a game. We have the power to make our players' passion come to life and make their lives better. And with great power comes great... you guessed it. We take that responsibility seriously, even if we have fun doing it. We want people to love our games, so we need to feel the passion too.
- Consider the Bigger Picture: There's more at play than just selling games. We want our impact to be a positive one. From the flexibility that brings our team members a better work/life balance, to initiatives that make our studio kind to the planet whilst fighting against discrimination and trying to help make the world a better place, we keep things in perspective. And we give a damn about giving back. It makes our wins mean even more when we pay it forward.