Lead Programmer

As a Lead Programmer, you will lead and motivate a small team of programmers and take responsibility for specific areas of the game design and work closely with all disciplines to deliver on the overall game vision.

Third Kind Games - a Virtuos Studio, is a world-class co-development games studio. Third Kind Games was founded in 2016 by a team of nine former Activision veterans and became a Virtuos Studio in 2024.

Our studio is based in Royal Leamington Spa and we also have remote studios in Poland and Spain. Our three studios have been built on the same original spirit and values since our beginning.

We work with some of the biggest names in the games industry such as Blizzard, Amazon, Microsoft and Mythical Games. We’re proud of our track record working on critically acclaimed games and franchises. We are also setting new benchmarks for creativity in the games industry, driving technical expertise in programming alongside creative innovation.

What is it like to be a Third Kinder?

We are a diverse team of people. We are collaborative, open-minded creatives who embrace ideas and knowledge from everyone in our team, with the aim of developing and inspiring ourselves, our projects and our games.

Work life balance and flexibility are very important to us and our team. At TKG we offer a place where our team can be their most creative, imaginative and confident selves. We want all of our team to feel valued, appreciated, and free to be who they are at work. TKG recently received a GOLD Award in Mind Charity’s Workplace Wellbeing Index, recognising our dedication to our team’s mental health and wellbeing.

Role Overview

You enjoy:

• Understanding our customer needs and ensuring the programming team contributes to player satisfaction and enjoyment, making our games more fun to play.
• Recruiting and leading a small team of Programmers, creating a positive environment which focuses on open feedback, mentoring and the career development of your team.
• Prioritising the daily workflows to ensure a balanced approach to workload and production management on behalf of the Programmer team.
• Leading by example and using your knowledge to support the development and performance of the team.
• Working with a highly experienced team on all areas of the game, both client and server.
• Fully owning complex systems through design and development, working closely with the Programmers and other disciplines to realise their visions.
• Playing an active role in the mentoring and development of junior team members.
• Drives engineering processes around programming. Proactively contributes improvements and rolls them out to their team.

What we are looking for from a Third Kinder

You would:

• Be capable of working autonomously, gathering your own requirements and creating your own solutions.
• Have a strong understanding of how an engine works and the commercial implications.
• Be naturally inquisitive, you keep up to date with emerging technologies and industry trends and cascade accordingly to support the development of your team.
• Prefer a creative, open-thinking environment over one driven by specs and detailed requirements.
• Take a design brief and flesh out the ideas, finding the problems, the fun, and explaining these to relevant stake-holders.
• Be adept at communicating with colleagues and customers to work well as a team.

Skills you need

• 10+ years' industry experience.
• 5+ years' C++ or C# experience.
• Experience in leading a team.
• Experience with Unreal and/or Unity.

Skills it would be great to have

Experience with:

• Other engines such as Lumberyard.
• Cloud services such as PlayFab and GameSparks.

If you think this is the role for you please send us your CV and an introductory email, which helps us to get to know you better. We aim to respond to your application within 2 working days.

Usually we will conduct a telephone interview, prior to any face to face or virtual interviews.

If you experience an error submitting your application, please email us at recruitment@thirdkindgames.com.

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