Description
JOB DESCRIPTION
Team: Systems
Reporting into: Lead Producer
Hybrid preferred, 1-2 days on-site, UK Remote possible
Position Overview
We are seeking a highly skilled and experienced Principal Software Engineer to join our development team. You are an expert in C# and Unity, with an exceptional ability to architect and implement efficient, scalable, reusable, and maintainable systems across multiple areas of the game. These include, but are not limited to: addressables, package management, data binding, UI and UI systems, and general system and editor tooling that support our games and their features and functionality.
You will set and evolve engineering standards and own key architectural decisions; and you will work closely with engineering leads and other engineering teams, as well as with design, production, QA and other stakeholders across the studio deliver high-quality player experiences on desktop, console and mobile.
You combine deep Unity and C# expertise with strong systems thinking, enabling you to break down complex problems, define pragmatic solutions, and mentor engineers to raise the bar across the studio.
Your contributions will directly shape and steer the technical foundations and player-facing experience of Football Manager, helping deliver intuitive, performant, and engaging games to our global player base.
KEY RESPONSIBILITIES
- Define, communicate and evolve the Unity and C# architectural vision and standards for the studio; ensure alignment across multiple teams and products.
- Own and drive cross-team technical initiatives that improve performance, maintainability, stability, iteration speed and flexibility across Unity projects and platforms.
- Work hands-on in C# and Unity to design and implement complex and scalable systems and tools that underpin our games and development workflows.
- Lead investigations into complex technical issues and guide teams in profiling, performance, memory usage, garbage collection, async programming, etc.
- Champion a performance and stability culture: establish measurements and workflows to identify and eliminate bottlenecks.
- Set the benchmark for code quality, testing strategies and documentation; embed practices that reduce defects and repeat work.
- Work closely with engineering leads and stakeholders across disciplines to shape technical roadmaps, unblock delivery and mitigate risk early.
- Influence planning and long-term architecture decisions; contribute strategic technical insight to roadmap discussions.
- Coach and mentor engineers at all levels; provide code and design reviews, pair coding and technical guidance (without line-management responsibilities).
- Contribute to recruitment, onboarding and processes to grow Unity expertise across the studio.
- Drive the development of editor tooling and automation that enhances productivity and streamlines content integration across engineering, art and design.
KNOWLEDGE, SKILLS & EXPERIENCE
- Extensive professional experience delivering complex but clean, portable and maintainable systems in Unity and C# at scale in video games, with multiple shipped titles across desktop, console and/or mobile.
- Track record of owning architecture, systems and tooling in Unity and C#.
- Deep proficiency with Unity profiling, optimisation and crash analysis, with a strong understanding of performance, memory management, garbage collection and async programming.
- Strong software engineering fundamentals: design patterns, testing strategies, code review and documentation.
- Ability to influence and align cross-functional stakeholders; excellent written and spoken communication skills.
- Experience with Unity’s UI Toolkit is beneficial but not essential.
- Familiarity with C++ is beneficial, particularly in contexts where Unity interfaces with native modules, but not essential.
- Strong analytical and problem-solving skills, with a proactive approach to technical challenges.
- Self-motivated with a commitment to continuous improvement and team support.
- Experience mentoring engineers and contributing to team-wide technical growth.
- Knowledge of Football Manager is beneficial; interest in football is a plus.