Gameplay Programmer (Intern)

The Studio

Compulsion Games is a first-party game studio and subsidiary of Microsoft’s Xbox Game Studios, located in Montreal, Canada. Founded by industry veterans, we have a human-first culture where we trust and respect each other, with shared love and passion for our craft. Since our inception in 2009, we’ve been dedicated to crafting extraordinary games that delve into the depths of human experience. Our titles, such as Contrast, We Happy Few and South of Midnight have garnered acclaim for their distinctive art, immersive music, rich world-building, and captivating narratives.

We aim to create characters with compelling, human flaws and narratives that explore heavy themes with care and empathy. Our storytelling typically has a healthy dose of darkness and comedy thrown in for good measure.

Our Culture

Compulsion Games is a quality-led studio with a humble team that enjoys experimenting with an artistic approach to making games. We are interested in people who are drawn to our core values of trust, autonomy, harmony, and craftsmanship and share our vision of a studio built around them. As a team, we do not want to grow too big to stay true to these values, as they don’t scale well.

Our team is passionately committed to both diversity and accessibility, core values throughout the Xbox Game Studios group. We care deeply about our team and their well-being, so you’d be joining a close-knit group of creative people.

The Need

We’re looking to add a talented Gameplay Programmer to our human-sized programming community, to help develop gameplay systems and ingredients while being an active and important member of our multidisciplinary feature teams. We need a programmer who is eager to contribute to the overall gameplay experience of our players.

The Role

Our games are made using Unreal Engine, previous experience with UE and C++ is a bonus, but not required. Previous game projects that showcase your expertise and interest in video games are a bonus, but not a requirement. We would like someone who is comfortable communicating and working directly with artists, writers, and designers to develop gameplay features and systems such as player interaction, character behavior, game elements, 3C, AI or game progression.

True to our core values of trust and autonomy, we will not dictate your mandates but instead will empower you to follow your interest and explore topics that excite you. Your lead and the other programmers will be there to support and advise you in this endeavor.

Important

• This is a paid internship
• Interns and their mentors to work in-person in the Montreal studio

Responsibilities

• You will develop features for our next game in the Unreal Engine
• You will write C/C++ code that will shape the vision of the game

Qualifications

• You are currently enrolled in a bachelor’s degree granting program or higher
• You must be available for a full-time paid internship winter 2025 semester
• You are passionate about video games
• You are familiar with an object-oriented programming (OOP) language, ideally C++
• You are comfortable communicating with a team of different disciplines
• You are able to communicate in verbal and written form in English

This is a full-time position, with a salary, based in our Downtown Montreal location, by Atwater Metro station. We are only considering students who will be enrolled in an accredited degree program. Applicants must be legally authorized to work in Canada on a full-time basis during the internship (January 2025 – May 2025). Visa sponsorship is not available for this position.