Do you love games? Do you like working in a startup environment? Do you want to be on the cutting edge? If so, then this role may be just right for you. The Alexa Games team drives and develops new game experiences for customers and tools for game developers. We are the pioneers in exploring what gaming on Alexa is by deeply understanding our customers and creating a differentiated gaming platform to introduce new genres of games that take advantage of Alexa's voice-first experience, cloud AI and family of devices like Echo, Fire TV, Fire Tablets and Smarthome.
Our mission is to define what gaming on Alexa should be.
We do this by pushing the envelope on Alexa’s capabilities and explore new gaming experiences by developing our own games and advocating for our developers. We also believe a thriving community of third party developers is critical so we create and share tools, best practices, and experiences that can inspire game developers.
The Alexa Games team is seeking a Senior Gameplay Engineer to join a fast paced, startup innovation team where fun is our job. In this role, you will be expected to operate at all levels, diving deep into the details while providing strategic inputs for the product. You will own leading a team of engineers and working with production, design, and art to take green lit concepts, build prototypes and the final shipped product. You are the expert in taking greenfield ideas and effectively building games using the latest development tools and helping drive gaming innovation on Alexa.
The ideal candidate is a creative, demonstrated technology leader with both breadth and depth of relevant technologies. This opportunity requires excellent creative, technical, problem-solving, and communication skills. At the core of the position is to be able to Think Big and innovating through simple solutions that can scale and deliver on customer value. Ideal candidates have extensive experience with agile methodologies of development, have a high team work mentality coupled with a strong bias for action yet always insisting on highest standards. That said, everyone on the team needs to be entrepreneurial, wear many hats and work in a highly collaborative environment that’s more startup than big company.
You should be comfortable with a degree of ambiguity that’s higher than most projects and relish the idea of solving problems that, frankly, haven’t been solved before. You will tackle challenging, novel situations every day and you’ll have the opportunity to work with multiple technical teams within Alexa. You will gain an understanding of how Alexa operates and help establish an entirely category for gaming. Along the way, we guarantee that you’ll learn a ton, have fun and make a positive impact on millions of people.
BASIC QUALIFICATIONS
- 3+ years of programming experience with at least one modern language such as Java, C++, or C# including object-oriented design
- 2+ years of experience contributing to the architecture and design (architecture, design patterns, reliability and scaling) of new and current systems
- 4+ years of professional software development experience
- Bachelor’s degree in computer science, engineering or related technical discipline or equivalent experience
- 5+ years of relevant work experience in software engineering
- 2+ shipped titles in either AAA on PC, Console or Mobile
- 2+ years experience in any of the following: physics, inputs, AI, sound, engine, game systems, tooling, or optimizations
- 2+ years experience with game engines (i.e. Unity, Unreal, Lumberyard, etc. ) and/or WebGL based rendering frameworks (i.e. three.js, pixi.js, howler.js, etc.)
PREFERRED QUALIFICATIONS
- Masters degree in CS or equivalent or MBA is preferred
- Strong 2D/3D math.
- Intuitive understanding of action gameplay and design.
- Capable of quick prototyping and rapid iteration to 'find the fun'.
- Passionate gamer.
- Experience with scripting languages such as Python or Lua and visual scripting tools.
- Capable of debugging and optimizing code for lower powered gaming devices
