Tech Lead Gameplay Programmer

Tech Lead / Gameplay Programmer

Location: Remote

Employment Type: Full-Time

Department: Engineering

About CNTXT

CNTXT is building AI-powered products that redefine how people interact with technology. We bring together world-class engineering, product, and design talent to create intelligent, scalable, and engaging digital experiences. We're looking for exceptional builders who thrive in fast-moving environments, take ownership, and enjoy solving complex technical challenges.

About the Role

We're looking for an experienced Tech Lead / Gameplay Programmer to lead the engineering development of our next-generation gaming experiences.

As the technical leader, you'll define the overall architecture, build scalable gameplay systems, establish engineering standards, and mentor a high-performing development team. You'll work cross-functionally with designers, artists, product managers, and leadership to deliver polished, performant, and engaging gameplay while ensuring long-term technical excellence.

This is a hands-on leadership role where you'll balance strategic technical direction with active development.

What You'll Do

Technical Leadership

• Define and own the technical architecture and engineering roadmap.
• Make key technology decisions that support scalability, performance, and maintainability.
• Lead, mentor, and grow a team of gameplay engineers through coaching and code reviews.
• Establish engineering standards, development processes, and coding best practices.
• Drive sprint planning, technical estimation, and execution across multiple workstreams.
• Identify technical risks early and provide practical solutions.

Gameplay Engineering

• Design, develop, and maintain core gameplay systems and mechanics.
• Build player movement, combat, AI, progression, interaction systems, and game logic.
• Collaborate closely with game designers to prototype, iterate, and refine gameplay features.
• Develop modular, reusable, and scalable gameplay frameworks.

Performance & Engine Development

• Optimize gameplay performance across CPU, GPU, memory, loading times, and frame rate.
• Improve rendering, animation, physics, networking, and runtime systems.
• Profile performance and resolve technical bottlenecks throughout development.
• Ensure high-quality, stable gameplay across target platforms.

Development Infrastructure

• Design and maintain scalable build and deployment pipelines.
• Implement CI/CD workflows for automated builds, testing, and releases.
• Manage source control, asset integration, and development tooling.
• Develop internal debugging utilities and productivity tools for the engineering team.
• Ensure reliable development environments for distributed teams.

Cross-Functional Collaboration

• Partner closely with Design, Art, QA, Product, and Production teams.
• Contribute to technical planning and product roadmap discussions.
• Balance rapid feature delivery with sustainable engineering practices.
• Clearly communicate technical decisions, timelines, dependencies, and risks.

What We're Looking For

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, or a related discipline (or equivalent practical experience).
• 8+ years of professional software engineering experience.
• 5+ years developing gameplay systems for commercial games.
• Experience shipping at least one commercially released game.
• Expert-level proficiency with Unreal Engine (C++) or Unity (C#).
• Strong understanding of gameplay architecture, AI, animation systems, physics, networking, and optimization.
• Proven experience leading engineering teams and mentoring developers.
• Experience building scalable development pipelines, CI/CD workflows, and engineering tooling.
• Strong debugging, profiling, and performance optimization skills.
• Excellent communication skills with experience working in remote, cross-functional teams.

Nice to Have

• Experience building multiplayer or live-service games.
• Experience developing games for PC, console, or mobile platforms.
• Familiarity with Entity Component System (ECS) architecture.
• Experience with graphics programming, rendering pipelines, and shader development.
• Knowledge of cloud infrastructure and backend services supporting online games.
• Experience creating internal development tools and editor extensions.

Technical Stack

• Unreal Engine (preferred) or Unity
• C++ and/or C#
• Git, Perforce, or equivalent version control
• CI/CD and automated build pipelines
• Gameplay systems architecture
• Performance profiling and optimization
• Multithreading and concurrent programming
• AI, physics, animation, and networking systems
• Software architecture and engineering best practices

Why Join CNTXT?

• Build innovative products at the intersection of gaming and AI.
• Work alongside a world-class, globally distributed engineering team.
• Own technical direction and influence product strategy from day one.
• Solve complex engineering challenges at scale.