Magic Pixel Games - Game Server Engineer - Full Stack
Los Angeles Full Time, Relocation Assistance can be provided.
Our team is now looking for a Game Server Engineer to help build the infrastructure for our game to be enjoyed by players all over the world. Our ideal candidate will work closely with our systems and gameplay engineering team to handle game data transfer over the internet, server-side validation, metrics and data warehousing, but will also participate in other roles as needed.
Primary Responsibilities:
• Design, architect, and implement APIs and scalable server-side logic for our cloud-based mobile multiplayer games and shared platform services on a cutting-edge web technology stack
• Work closely with game teams and aid in development of native and managed client side platform libraries, adapters and data structures to support the server model
• Plan and develop back-end features, services and third-party integrations for content management, content delivery, analytics and social networks
Requirements:
• Superlative proficiency in a compiled language such as C++, Objective-C or C#
• Proficient in at least one dynamic language and application scale development with an accompanying web framework, preferably JavaScript and Node.js
• Well-versed in HTTP, RESTful API design principles, security concerns and optimization techniques such as caching and request batching
• Blocking IO calls make you cringe
• Self-motivated, proactive and engaged attitude towards the project and the technology to make it happen
• Comfortable working on an agile and collaborative team
• Strong debugging and communications skills
• Accurate time and schedule management
• Self-motivated, proactive and engaged attitude
• Passionate for playing and working on mobile games
• Generalist skill set, adaptable and flexible
Preferences:
• Experience working on shipping games, specifically asynchronous or real-time multiplayer mobile or social games
• Extra bonus for experience supporting live games
Experience in data modeling concerns for SQL and NoSQL databases to support low latency and horizontal scalability, preferably MongoDB and Redis
• Experience deploying to and scaling on AWS
• Social identity management
• Server sent events, particularly WebSockets and Socket.IO
• Mobile platform experience on iOS and/or Android a plus
• Web development and HTML5 experience
• Experience in cocos2d-x and Unity game engines
• Linux proficiency
Magic Pixel Games (http://www.magicpixelgames.com) was founded in 2010 by the core members that developed the award-winning Steven Spielberg's BOOM BLOX. Much of our team has worked together for almost a decade, and we’ve now struck out on our own to continue our tradition of creating extraordinary games. Our first product was launched in 2011: Carnival Island, developed with Sony Santa Monica Studio.
We’re now building a team as we ramp up for our second project, which again, strives to break new ground – but is significantly different from our first in all ways – tone, target audience and style…we’re excited!
Join us and make a difference!
Each member of our closely-knit team makes a very real contribution to the game, and awesome ideas come from everyone. We all wear many hats, we play to each other’s strengths, and we build on each other’s ideas.
Our team moves fast, and takes on big challenges. We love what we do, and you will too!
Note: We're currently located by the Los Angeles airport. At the moment, we are not considering telecommuters.
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Our team is now looking for a Senior Game Systems Designer to guide the vision for our games. Designers drive our games, and this role is critical for making sure our games are fun, accessible, and ultimately compelling for users of all ages and skill levels…and this is a chance to get involved in its formative days.
Primary Responsibilities:
• Ideate, design and implement game systems, as required by lead designers and project requirements
• Design and tune games and experiences while bearing target audience requirements in mind
• Work closely with other designers to help conceive game mechanics while preserving the overall theme and design constraints of the product
• Prototype rapidly on ‘whatever works’ (paper or existing games), and then translate those findings into a production environment
• Communicate design directives to the team, and confirming that guidelines are followed, providing clear and actionable feedback to content creators where necessary
• Evaluate, prioritize and integrate feedback from stakeholders
• Drive design considerations for art
• Collaborate with engineers on required gameplay enhancements and feature requests, design tools and pipeline
• Collaborate with audio artists as needed to fulfill design requirements
• Work closely with all team-members in a collaborative agile, small team environment
Requirements:
• General awesomeness
• 2-4 years’ experience in working on and shipping games (at least one shipped and credited game)
• Excellent written and verbal communications skills, including sketches, flowcharts or diagramming when needed
• Experience with current generation consoles, and the technical aspects of creating content for them, in scripting or creating basic level geometry
• Experience architecting complete gameplay systems and compulsion loops including table- and data-jockeying
• Comfortable working on an agile and collaborative team
• Accurate time and schedule management
• Self-motivated, proactive and engaged attitude towards the project
• Mention a penguin in the cover letter or accompanying e-mail
• Passionate for (and interested in working on) games
• Tendency towards bursts of innovative thinking and inspiring brainstorming
• Ability to rapidly consider repercussions of design decisions throughout all aspects of a
game
• Deep understanding of player motivations and design compulsions
• Mentally agile and able to participate and contribute to fast-paced design brainstorming and discussion
• Wide range of knowledge on all games, past and present and the ability to tap into this for design discussions
Magic Pixel Games (http://www.magicpixelgames.com) was founded in 2010 by the core members that developed the award-winning Steven Spielberg's BOOM BLOX. Much of our team has worked together for almost a decade, and we’ve now struck out on our own to continue our tradition of creating extraordinary games. Our first product was launched in 2011: Carnival Island, developed with Sony Santa Monica Studio.
We’re now building a team as we ramp up for our second project, which again, strives to break new ground – but is significantly different from our first in all ways – tone, target audience and style…we’re excited!
Join us and make a difference!
Each member of our closely-knit team makes a very real contribution to the game, and awesome ideas come from everyone. We all wear many hats, we play to each other’s strengths, and we build on each other’s ideas.
Our team moves fast, and takes on big challenges. We love what we do, and you will too!
Note: We're currently located by the Los Angeles airport. At the moment, we are not considering telecommuters.
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We’ve identified an immediate need for a Tools Programmer to help build up the asset pipeline for our game. As ramp up for our next game, we’re finding gaps in the technology that allow our content creators to put their awesomeness into the game, and we’d like your help!
Primary Responsibilities:
• Design, implement and maintain content creation tools, asset pipelines and scripts as required by lead programmer and project
• Collaborate with other engineers on integration and support tasks
• Collaborate with designers, artists and audio artists as needed to build and refine content pipelines.
• Work closely with producers, artists, and designers in a highly collaborative agile, small team environment
Requirements:
• 2-4 years’ experience in working on and shipping games
• Superlative C/C++ Proficiency
• Strong math skills
• Self-motivated, proactive and engaged attitude towards the project, and a genuine desire to help people realize their visions in game
• A mention of your dessert in your cover letter/E-mail
• Experience with working on other people’s code on a medium-sized team
• Comfortable working on an agile and collaborative team
• Flexibility in working with scripting languages, build systems, automation, XML and version control systems
• Strong debugging skills
• Accurate time and schedule management
• Passionate for (and interested in working on) games
• Generalist skill set, adaptable and flexible
Preferences:
• At least one shipped, credited game project
• Experience on current generation consoles
• Familiar with various high level or scripting languages
for game development
We're a mid-size (18-person) mobile game developer, and we're looking for a network programmer (proficient in C++, C# and Javascript/node.js)
We're also looking for Unity programmers.
Visa requirements will be considered on a case-by-case basis.
Find out more here: http://www.magicpixelgames.com/careers/