Associate Technical Director (Narrative Adventure)
Firesprite, United Kingdom
Job Description
A visionary game development studio founded in 2012, Firesprite builds innovative showcase titles for PlayStation platforms as part of the PlayStation Studios family.
Would you enjoy the freedom to create AAA games working from anywhere in the UK, including our Liverpool studio?
We're looking for an Associate Technical Director to join our team on a dark, story-driven next generation 'Narrative Adventure' with genre defining goals
This huge, highly ambitious partnership project takes atmosphere, storytelling, player agency and narrative firmly into ground-breaking territory on next-generation hardware technologies.
This project has AAA ambitions with a heavy focus on art, animation and delivering unique character performances to heighten player presence and immersion to new levels.
As an Associate Technical Director, you will help the Technical Director to oversee the technical aspects of the project. You will assist in setting, communicating, and delivering all technical aspects of the game’s vision.
Key Responsibilities:
- Research and analyse the available technologies to determine which best suit this project from engine plugins through middleware and beyond.
- With the Code and Technical Leads, help manage the programming process and identify the programming tasks.
- Work closely with Technical Director, programming leads and production team to help plan out the process, key risks and deliverables.
- Help in ensuring that the game is built with a productive methodology and solid coding practices, technical briefs and code reviews, always keeping in mind long term quality and future code sharing between projects.
- Assist in identifying technical risks on projects and discuss contingency plans with the TD that the team can execute upon.
- Along with the TD, you will work closely with Design, Creative, Cinematic, Art, Animation, Audio and Narrative directors to identify advances and trends in gaming and adapt to implement features which are shown to be key to improving and enhancing the final experience.
- You will help to Facilitate communication both within and across disciplines, instilling and reinforcing a solid philosophy of problem solving, alongside the Studio’s Core Technical Team (CTT).
- Maintain a continual working relationship across other teams within the studio, alongside the CTT, to further the use of shared technologies.
- Demonstrate qualities of good leadership, enthusiasm and sense of commitment and foster these within the programming team.
- Help direct the recruitment, on-boarding, development, and professional training of the programming team.
- Assist the TD and Lead Programmers in managing the performance of the programming team and their direct reports
Requirements
- Proven experience leading a programming team, in the games industry
- Experienced in developing AAA and shipping titles on console platforms must have shipped at least one game.
- Advanced understanding of C++ and debugging.
- Solid proficiency in optimization techniques.
- Excellent understanding of performance sensitive programming.
- An exceptional understanding of Software Engineering practices and principles, e.g. Object Oriented programming, etc
- Excellent understanding of CPU and GPU architecture bottlenecks.
- Strong understanding of multithreaded/parallel programming.
- Exceptional management and communication skills.
- Experience on working with AAA game engines and full understanding of their architecture.
- Unreal Engine experience.
- Knowledge of common graphics APIs (OpenGL/ES, Metal, Vulkan, DirectX) and shader languages is a bonus.
Benefits
- Private Healthcare Plan
- Bonus Scheme
- Enhanced Holiday Allowance
- Pension Plans
- Work From Home
- Training amp; Development
- Employee Assistance Programme - Counselling
Firesprite is proud to be an equal opportunity employer. We celebrate diversity and are committed to creating an inclusive environment for all employees.
We welcome and encourage applications from all suitable applicants regardless of age, disability, sex, gender reassignment, sexual orientation, pregnancy and maternity, race, religion or belief and marriage and civil partnerships.