The Initiative, located in Santa Monica and part of Microsoft’s Xbox Game Studios, is the development team creating Perfect Dark. Our studio is about craft, creating story, innovating, and looking ahead to the next big thing.
As a Principal Systems Engineer, you will be a critical and highly valued member of a growing Engineering team. You will use your expertise to empower the broader team to build industry leading content. You will implement the technology needed to ship our current and future AAA games, working closely with the Design, Art, and Animation teams. You are a generalist and a problem solver, and are knowledgeable in areas such as Rendering, Systems, Audio, Gameplay and Animation.
You are versatile, have strong development and production-sense, and have the expertise to inspire and mentor others to do their best work. We are building the team from scratch, so this is a unique opportunity to help shape the systems, pipelines and toolbox we will be using for years to come.
Responsibilities
As an experienced Systems Engineer, you will work directly with the engineering team and other key stakeholders across disciplines to:
- Architect complex features, own the technical design, and deliver implementations on time.
- Consult with other Engineers on the team to create, change, adapt or refactor systems as required.
- Proactively work to reduce the need for Engine changes.
- Work with the Artists, Animators, and Designer stakeholders to clarify design requirements and create superior systems.
- Design, implement, maintain a healthy code base, including design & code review, performance analysis, and optimization, as well as implementation of tooling focused on supporting a fast development cycle and accelerating other Developers.
- Contribute to AAA quality content workflow and pipeline design and implementation.
- Take ownership of complex systems.
- Mentor other Engineers.
- Maintain strong relationships with other disciplines.
- Support studio-side systems, such as Dev Operations, as needed.
- Lead by example: demonstrate a willingness to give and receive feedback, collaborate with others to share techniques and ideas, and contribute to a positive working environment.
Qualifications
- 8+ years of C++ Software Engineering experience.
- 5+ years of experience in designing, developing, and shipping major game contributions in published games or entertainment with market or critical acclaim.
- Experience with modern game development content creation tools and pipelines, and experience developing and optimizing multithreaded systems.
- Excellent debugging and optimizing skills.
- BS degree in Computer Science or equivalent experience.
Preferred Qualifications
- Able to demonstrate knowledge of solid software engineering practices.
- Excellent problem solving abilities.
- Strong communication skills; ability to work closely with other high-caliber engineers and artists.
- Comfortable with working across all disciplines found within a game development studio.
- Experience with commercial game engines.
- Experience integrating and supporting third party game technology SDKs.
- Scripting experience.
Microsoft is an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to age, ancestry, color, family or medical care leave, gender identity or expression, genetic information, marital status, medical condition, national origin, physical or mental disability, political affiliation, protected veteran status, race, religion, sex (including pregnancy), sexual orientation, or any other characteristic protected by applicable laws, regulations and ordinances. We also consider qualified applicants regardless of criminal histories, consistent with legal requirements. If you need assistance and/or a reasonable accommodation due to a disability during the application or the recruiting process, please send a request via the Accommodation request form.
Benefits/perks listed below may vary depending on the nature of your employment with Microsoft and the country where you work.
Benefits and Perks
- Industry leading healthcare
- Savings and investments
- Giving programs
- Educational resources
- Maternity and paternity leave
- Opportunities to network and connect
- Discounts on products and services
- Generous time away
