THE COMPANY - Codename Entertainment

Codename Entertainment is an award-winning video game studio. For more than 15 years, we’ve been creating games that entertain millions of players around the world. We’re also committed to giving back, supporting charities like Lambert House and Take This, and proudly participating in Extra Life for over a decade to raise funds for BC Children’s Hospital. We’re a passionate, tight-knit team of gamers who are committed to working hard, supporting each other, and having fun in the process. We’re proud to be a people-first gaming studio where your voice matters and your work has impact.

THE GAME - Idle Champions of the Forgotten Realms

Idle Champions of the Forgotten Realms is an officially licensed Dungeons & Dragons strategy game that brings together iconic characters from novels, adventures, and multiple live-play streams into one epic universe. Now in its 8th year of live service, Idle Champions is continuously evolving, with new content releases every month, a robust live-ops pipeline, and a deeply engaged player base that spans PC, mobile, and console platforms.

THE ROLE

We are currently on a quest to find a talented hero to join our team. Our Lead Technical Developer is the cornerstone to our game’s codebase - you’ll write code; spec out and implement features; oversee the workload and provide guidance to the developers, quality assurance, and player support; and work with our production teams to bring the game to life. This is a hands-on role with both technical and leadership responsibilities.

Technical Responsibilities:

• Own the system architecture for Idle Champions, ensuring it remains stable, scalable, and well-documented.
• Write and maintain core gameplay, system, and tool code, especially in areas of high complexity or technical risk.
• Prepare and deploy builds in line with the live-service schedule, ensuring content releases are stable and ship on time.
• Diagnose and resolve high-impact issues, and ensure that development practices meet Codename’s standards for quality and efficiency.
• Collaborate across production teams to scope features, evaluate design feasibility, and propose implementation strategies that align with game performance and technical capabilities.
• Maintain a clear “paper trail” of architectural changes to keep the development team aligned on best practices and system changes to the game.
• Lead the resolution of player-facing issues by ensuring quality assurance standards are upheld, identified bugs are triaged and addressed based on priority, and player support tickets are resolved within established timelines.

Leadership Responsibilities:

• Assign and prioritize work for the development, quality assurance, and player support roles to ensure that production needs are met and the team is held accountable for deliverables.
• Provide technical oversight to the development team by reviewing code, advising on key technical decisions, and ensuring coding standards are maintained across the team.
• Mentor and support a team of developers, quality assurance, and player support in meeting their job demands and growing their technical skills.

YOUR QUALIFICATIONS - People leader with a love for coding & games

You’re a gamer who’s skilled at coding and wants to support a team. You have advanced technical skills that allow you to be comfortable in navigating complex codebases and you enjoy working with others to help them succeed. You may already have some experience leading a team or this may be your first foray into an official leadership role - our role can scale and grow based on your career progress. You’ll find success in this role if you bring with you:

• Strong technical expertise that allows you to independently solve complex coding problems and optimize legacy systems within the following domains:
• Front-end game client development using Unity & C#
• Back-end development using PHP (or equivalent)
• SQL Database interactions, MySQL/PostgreSQL (or equivalent)
• Client-server architecture
• An innovative mindset with the ability to identify solutions that balance design goals, technical constraints, and long-term maintainability.
• Strong time management and prioritization skills, with the judgment to balance polished technical solutions against the need to meet deadlines and ship stable, reliable content on schedule.
• The patience and technical discipline to work through complex challenges and clearly document systems, especially within an older codebase.
• An ability to see the big picture and translate it into clear, actionable day-to-day tasks that you and others can execute on to achieve the game’s long-term goals.
• A proactive, accountable mindset, taking the initiative to move work forward, follow through on commitments, and ensure team goals are met without needing to be asked.
• An ability to remain level-headed and calm while navigating time-sensitive challenges in a live-service environment.
• Collaborative leadership that allows you to communicate clearly and effectively across teams; navigate differing priorities; and foster a positive, inspiring work environment.
• A genuine interest in leading people and supporting them in their growth and development.
• A player-focused mindset, committed to delivering a high-quality gaming experience to the community.
• A deep passion for games, with a strong understanding of video game culture and an appreciation of the joy games bring to our lives.

You’ll progress even quicker if you have the following:

• Experience working in a live ops setting where you gained exposure to preparing and deploying builds on multiple platforms; coordinating content for release; and addressing and prioritizing post-launch issues.
• Familiarity and knowledge of how QA & player support function and support game development.
• Experience leading a team and providing technical mentorship and oversight.
• Experience scoping and breaking down work into manageable tasks, assigning work, and holding the team accountable for timely deliverables.
• Experience playing Dungeons & Dragons and/or one of our games!

WORK SCHEDULE

The work schedule for this full-time role is Monday to Friday, averaging 35 hours per week. This leadership position recognizes that in live-servicing a game, challenges can crop up outside of regular business hours that need to be attended to to keep the game running smoothly. Codename recognizes the additional efforts of its team members and provides for reasonable time in lieu to help team members maintain a healthy work/life balance.

SALARY RANGE

The hiring salary range for this position is $98,000 - $115,000 per year, with further growth opportunities available as you progress through your career at Codename. Your specific starting salary for this position would be determined based on the qualifications and experience you bring to the table. We value our team’s contributions and recognize the importance of fair pay and as such are open to clear and transparent salary conversations.

WHAT WE OFFER - A fun place to work!

We love making games and we love who we make games with! We are a people-first culture, focused on creating memorable experiences for our team. We value your contributions and offer a comprehensive benefits package to support you and your family, career advancement and development opportunities, and fun ways to connect with your colleagues and bring joy to your day-to-day work. Some of the ways we make the workplace fun include:

• Comprehensive employer-paid health benefits, including extended health, dental, EFAP, life insurance, AD&D, and dependent insurance.
• Generous paid time off options for vacation (3-weeks upon hire, 4-weeks after a year), sick days (6-days), and personal time (4-days) as well as the ability to carry forward unused time to subsequent years (no use-it or lose-it policies!).
• Annual funding for professional development activities to support your desire to Level Up!
• Annual funding for game purchases to support your love of games!
• A comprehensive mentorship program that pairs you with industry professionals to help you grow and develop your career.
• A work environment in the high-tech industry that’s focused on supporting you to create a healthy work/life balance.
• Plenty of opportunities to interact with our team who make working fun - be it through quarterly team activities, board games over lunch, or eating ice cream sandwiches during the work day!

HOW TO APPLY

Let us know about your love of gaming and how you would be a good fit for this role by sending your cover letter, resume, and portfolio to careers@codenameentertainment.com. This position will remain open until filled, but we will begin reviewing applications on Tuesday, July 2, 2025. Excited by the opportunity, but not sure if you’re a good fit? Reach out to us anyways. We love to hear from you as we recognize that the best candidates come with diverse backgrounds and skills.

ABOUT OUR RECRUITMENT PROCESS - Designed to help you succeed

We are an equal opportunity employer committed to building a diverse and inclusive workplace that sets our team up for success. The Lead Technical Developer is a pivotal role for our operations and as such we are taking great care in finding the right individual to support our team. The recruitment process will include several rounds of interviews with various key stakeholders, a technical competency test, and reference checks. We believe that recruitment is a two-way street, and our hope is that our recruitment process will not only help us find the right individual for the role, but will also allow you to feel confident in being able to assess whether or not you want to embark on your next journey with us. We also recognize that to help set you up for success you may benefit from an accommodation during our recruitment process. Our Human Resources team is available to help arrange for reasonable accommodations throughout the recruitment process - please don’t hesitate to ask for support.