Software Development Engineer Co-op/Intern [May 2021]

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For the May term we will only be interviewing applicants who are currently located within commuting distance of Vancouver, BC. Everyone at ATA is currently working from home and we don't have a defined timeline for our return to the office. To ensure the best possible experience for students doing a co-op term at ATA we will only be hiring applicants who will not need to relocate in order to return or start their term at our studio in downtown Vancouver.

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Engineers at A Thinking Ape are involved in all aspects of the products we create. You will have the ability to influence the design and development of the projects you are working on. You will be provided with challenging work to continuously improve and grow.

Most of our engineers work full-stack, with opportunities to develop specializations in Unity, Android and iOS, Python/Django, TypeScript/React, Distributed System Design, and Database Optimization. We use tools like Docker, MySQL, Redis, Kafka, BigQuery and Graphite/Grafana.

All of our co-ops are provided with the same opportunities as our full time engineers. We value a culture of meritocracy, and everything you do here will have a direct impact on our products. At the end of your term, you'll be able to install an app on your phone, and point out the cool things you made happen. You will get to work on our live games or our tools and infrastructure team and could be working on adding new features, metrics tracking, data analysis, or addressing big scalability problems.

Areas of work that co-ops have opportunities to contribute to:

• Client development: developing iOS and Android products from scratch and shipping worldwide featured products to the App Store
• Distributed systems: constructing applications using service oriented architectures that power our live gaming products
• Analytics: creating data visualizations and tools to help drive key product decisions and customer acquisition strategy
• Data mining: building a continuous real-time data collection and mining platform for player behaviour intelligence

Things that past co-ops have worked on:

• Guild management improvements like the ability to invite people, open clubs that players can join without approval, better club search, and other tools to keep our most active players engaged.
• Implemented a scalable group leaderboard event system full stack. The system guarantees consistency and availability while dozens of players try to contribute progress to their group frequently.
• Revamped data deploy tool to enable multiple game designers to work simultaneously. Setup metrics tracking and funnel analysis and experimented with different UI polishes to improve retention.
• Worked on upgrading our data pipeline: processing data and creating different data representations and visualizations to help ATA to make marketing and product decisions.
• Revamped the realm map overview to include realtime positions of their marches, locations of shrines/members of their/their own city, and bookmarked pins!
• Implemented the entire stack for our Second Builder subscription purchase, which included interfacing with both the Google Play Store and Apple App Store, as well as client support.
• Optimized particle systems in-game to significantly reduce peak memory usage.
• Developed leaderboard-assigned classes for Shrines to grant players additional perks.

Who you are:

• Strong understanding of object-oriented design, data structures and algorithms
• You communicate your thoughts and ideas clearly in code and in writing
• You are passionate about mobile games already OR are excited to learn about them and what drives our players
• You are an enthusiastic learner
• You take pride and responsibility in your work

What to include in your application:

• Yes, we do need your resume 😊
• Link us to things you’ve built! - show us what you made (side projects, open source projects, hackathons)
• Tell us about any competitions you’ve participated in

Things that don't matter as much:

• Knowledge of specific languages or domain expertise in particular platforms
• Mobile development experience
• Specific year level

While everyone on our team is different, to thrive here you should...

• Be self motivated, take pride in your work and enjoy huge amounts of ownership
• Set aside your ego and have wonderful arguments with your coworkers in order to create something better than any one person could individually
• Challenge your own assumptions and use data to make decisions whenever possible
• Be passionate about teaching others what you know and continuing your own growth every day
• Not be afraid to fail–you experiment and learn from your mistakes

What’s in it for you

At ATA you’re offered a flexible, safe, inclusive environment in which you have the autonomy to do your best work, surrounded by a strong team and with the encouragement of supportive leadership that doesn’t just care what you’re doing, but how you’re doing. You’re trusted, respected, listened to, cared for and valued. You take on thought-provoking projects and tackle fun problems alongside people who are equally invested in making meaningful contributions and seeing new ideas come to life. You know how your work aligns with the company’s goals. Your career is given the space and resources to progress. You accomplish things that make you proud. You are compensated competitively, your health and wellbeing are top priorities and you enjoy plenty of perks. You build communities, take ownership, have wonderful arguments, let the best ideas win and keep growing. You don’t just work for ATA, you are an integral part of ATA.

Our commitment to inclusion

At ATA we build communities. But community extends beyond our players: it also encompasses our employees and candidates. We support diversity in the workplace and always strive for inclusion. Part of this is selfish; we believe we’ll make better decisions if we’re able to tap into a variety of different perspectives. But we also care that our employees and candidates feel valued and comfortable being themselves. We are proud of the wonderful people, workplace and culture that ATA has fostered since its inception.

Discover even more

Check out our story to find out how we got to where we are today, and learn about our culture by following @athinkingape on social. You can also listen to Kenshi Arasaki, ATA CEO & Co-Founder, talk about what it’s like to work here .

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