Who we are

A Thinking Ape builds communities through mobile games with emergent social play and original IP. We released our first game in 2009 and have been profitable and growing every year since. We are a bottom-up driven company with small teams that have a big focus on ownership and data driven decision making. Our portfolio of games are growing. We are scaling our infrastructure and entering new markets to capitalize on this growth and bring our games to more players.

The job

As a software engineer with a specialization in Unity front-end systems you will design, build, monitor, and release in-game features, client systems, art pipelines, and tools for our most recently released live mobile game, Kingdoms of Heckfire. This game has hundreds of thousands of active users communicating, competing, and co-operating in real-time. This role has a major impact on the types of experiences that ATA can provide to our continuously growing player communities. You will work closely with engineers, artists and game designers and be involved in every aspect of product development.

Things you will work on

You will be responsible for evolving the architecture of our mobile application and contributing new features, tools, and optimizations for Kingdoms of Heckfire. Heckfire’s front-end client is built with Unity, and is developed for both iOS and Android. You will also:

Build front-end systems for massively multiplayer mobile games that hundreds of thousands of users will interact with.
Create tools to automate and optimize processes across disciplines. These might be build systems for iOS and Android, optimizations for our 3D rendering and asset loading, or content pipelines for our art team.
Become involved in every aspect of product development, from design to implementation to playtests to metrics analysis.
Lead the technical investigation, implementation, release, and iteration of solutions to large scale product and technical problems.

Who you are

The primary qualifications we’re looking for are:

An extensive track record architecting, and implementing, and releasing large-scale mobile games in Unity.
The ability to both prototype new ideas quickly and polish validated ideas to perfection.
A willingness to shape Unity development practice throughout the company.
Excellent communication and collaboration skills.
A passion for mobile gaming products.

Some other things that help are

You have worked extensively on real-time applications including graphics, animation, physics, networking, or complex user interfaces.
You have tackled memory and performance issues on mobile platforms, and have experience balancing battery, GPU, CPU, and memory resources to achieve high quality results.
You have experience working on a live mobile product and a solid understanding of content pipeline architecture.
You have experience with data analysis, KPI impact analysis and metrics-based decision making.
You can manage your own time and work with others to balance product value against quarterly goals and available resources.

Remote First

We have committed to a remote first approach for 2021 with access to in-person collaboration spaces in Vancouver when safe to do so. Our intention is to use 2021 as the foundational year to develop our remote excellence and help shape the future of ATA. This means our roles are currently open to candidates who can work in Canada between the core hours of 11am - 4pm PST. We are open to help relocate the successful candidate to Canada.

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. Please consider applying even if you don't meet every qualification. Experience comes in many forms and we value adding diverse perspectives to our teams.

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.