What we are looking for:

As a Lead Gameplay Engineer, you will help shape the technical vision for 3C gameplay (character, camera, and combat) in a fast-paced game built on Unreal Engine 5. You will be the bridge between design intent and technical reality, turning ambitious ideas into systems that feel great in the player’s hands, scale with the game, and ship on schedule. You will lead a team of gameplay engineers on core 3C systems while staying hands-on in the code, with significant opportunities to shape the game and how we build it. This role suits a lead who enjoys building great systems and growing great engineers in equal measure.

What we will do together:

Drive the technical direction of your team’s weapons, mobility, and camera systems from prototype through ship, with a primary focus on, but not limited to, those areas and the data-driven systems that support them.
With your team, architect character movement, traversal, weapons, and camera systems alongside Design and Animation, so the game feels responsive, readable, and fair.
Make movement, aiming, and shooting feel responsive, precise, and great in the player’s hands.
Lead hands-on development in C++ and Blueprint, owning the performance and stability of your team’s systems.
Partner with Production to keep your team tasked and planned, anticipating risks and owning deliverables.
Partner with Technical Art and Design on tooling and content validation, and lead refactors to production quality.
Set and uphold engineering standards: code review, build stability, testing, and documentation.
Manage a team of around five direct reports: mentor them on architecture and design, unblock and guide their work, and own 1:1s, performance, career growth, and hiring.
Champion agentic workflows, automation, and test-driven development, keeping human review central.

What you will bring:

Shipped 3C systems (character movement, camera, and combat/shooting).
A track record of shipping AAA titles through a full development cycle and/or a live-service game post-launch.
Shipped networked gameplay (prediction, lag compensation, hit registration).
Proven delivery against production schedules: planning, anticipating work, and hitting deliverables.
Proven, proactive leadership of engineers toward durable solutions: reviewing work, guiding architecture and design, unblocking, and career growth.
Hands-on Unreal Engine 5 experience; if not a UE5 expert, a proven track record of adapting across engines.
Strong game C++: performance, memory management, and low-level profiling and debugging when needed.
Deep, hands-on experience with data-driven ability, combat, mobility, or camera systems, from building or extending one to understanding how frameworks like GAS or Unreal’s movement and camera work internally.
A data-driven mindset, a deep understanding of game design, and a holistic view of the full game, in tune with product and design intent.
Strong cross-discipline communication and the drive to take large features from concept to completion.
An open mind and flexibility as priorities, assignments, and the role evolve across development phases.
Curiosity and sharp judgment: you frame problems clearly, delegate well, verify results critically, and can articulate and evangelize how tools like Claude Code or Cursor have changed the way you work.
Experience refactoring or building production-grade, scalable gameplay systems is a strong plus.
Ideally, you have shipped, or built real depth in, action games with fast, responsive combat.
Experience with animation systems (Animation Blueprints, motion matching, root motion) is a strong plus.
Varied networking models (replication, rollback, snapshot), console or mobile, or aim tuning are a bonus.

Interested… a bit about Escape Velocity:

Escape Velocity is a team of passionate, talented developers working at a studio that offers excellent benefits, on what we believe is a once-in-a-career project with a committed publisher. But that doesn’t necessarily make us unique. What does make us special? We value the time, energy, and talent of our players and our colleagues. We want every hour spent developing and playing our games to be an incredibly rewarding and worthwhile use of your time. To that end, we are ‘Fully Remote’ and support team members nearly anywhere in the world. We prioritize honesty, even when that means sharing bad news. We strive to give everyone autonomy so they can determine how best to work and play, and we care more about what you bring to the game and studio than how many hours you’re clocking. We’re dedicated to building a culture of play, which not only makes us better game makers, but also strengthens the bonds between us all. We believe in constant improvement across all areas – from the game itself to our production design – and are constantly re-evaluating how we spend our time to ensure that we’re not wasting yours and we’re all always working on the most important things.

A few benefits you can expect from us:

A generous PTO allowance
Summer and Winter holidays studio closure (separate to PTO allowance)
Private Medical & Dental Healthcare
Private Mental Health scheme
A generous annual Health & Wellbeing allowance
Top range tech for your home set up
Other benefits based on your region

How to apply:

Click apply and complete an application along with a Resume / CV. If we would like to move forward with your application, a member of the Recruiting Team will reach out to you and guide you through our process.

Escape Velocity is proud to be an equal opportunity employer. We are committed to hiring, promoting, and compensating employees based on their qualifications and demonstrated ability to perform job responsibilities.

Applications will be considered regardless of age, disability, gender identity, sexual orientation, religion, belief, race, or any other protected category.

Lead Gameplay Engineer

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