01Owns
Gameplay systems
Implements mechanics, abilities, AI behaviour and progression in clean, data-driven code that designers can tune without a rebuild.
Hire · Games
Hire Game Developers
Senior game programmers who join your studio, work in your engine and source control, and own gameplay systems from prototype to certified build. Every shortlisted programmer has been paid to implement a mechanic, profile a scene that misses its frame budget and reason through a networked edge case.
Paid gameplay and profiling exercise
Senior, lead and technical director
Unity and Unreal Engine experience
On your team
What a game developer owns on your team.
02Owns
Frame budget
Keeps each frame inside 16.6 or 33.3 milliseconds by profiling CPU, GPU, memory and garbage collection on target hardware.
03Owns
Multiplayer foundations
Sets up client prediction, server authority and replication so latency feels fair and cheating is harder.
04Owns
Live-ops tooling
Builds remote config, content drops, event scheduling and telemetry hooks that let the team update the game without a new binary.
05Owns
Platform submission
Prepares builds for console certification and mobile store requirements, including save data, suspend and resume, and trophies or achievements.
Reading a game programmer’s portfolio
Trailers show art and design as much as code. Ask instead what the candidate personally built, how designers tuned it and what broke in production. Programmers who talk about allocation spikes, input buffering or replication bugs they fixed are describing real shipped work.
Vetting
Skills we test before a game developer joins.
01Tested
Unity
C#, ScriptableObjects, the Profiler and Frame Debugger, Addressables, and avoiding per-frame allocations.
02Tested
Unreal Engine
C++ with Blueprint exposure, the Gameplay Ability System, Unreal Insights and replication settings.
03Tested
Netcode basics
Tick rates, snapshot interpolation, lag compensation and the difference between peer-to-peer and dedicated servers.
04Tested
Rendering awareness
Draw call batching, LODs, occlusion culling and shader variants on mobile and console GPUs.
05Tested
Tools for designers
Editor extensions and data pipelines that let level and systems designers iterate without programmer help.
06Tested
Certification knowledge
Familiar with platform technical requirements, controller disconnect handling and save data rules.
Work sample
How the game developer work sample runs.
- 01Step 1
Build a mechanic
The candidate implements a small ability or movement mechanic, exposing tuning values to designers, paid as a one-day task.
- 02Step 2
Rescue the frame rate
They receive a scene running well below target and use the engine profiler to find and fix the biggest costs.
- 03Step 3
Reason about latency
We describe a hit that one player saw and another did not; they explain why and how lag compensation would decide it.
- 04Step 4
Talk through certification
A call about a failed submission, covering suspend and resume, user switching and how they would reproduce it.
Levels
Game Developers: what changes at each level.
01Level 1
Senior
Owns gameplay features in an established engine setup and mentors juniors on your team through review.
02Level 2
Lead
Sets code architecture, performance budgets, build pipelines and the split between engine and gameplay work.
03Level 3
Technical director
Chooses engines and middleware, plans multiplayer infrastructure and owns technical risk across the production.
Senior, lead or technical director
A senior adds gameplay capacity to a team with an engine and conventions in place. A lead helps when performance budgets are unclear or build times hurt iteration. A technical director suits a studio facing big calls such as engine choice, multiplayer architecture or a port to new platforms.
Other options
When to hire someone other than a game developer.
01Consider
AR is the main feature
If the product is a spatial app with light game elements, an AR developer is a closer match.
Open register02Consider
A gamified business app
Badges and streaks inside a normal app need a mobile app developer, not an engine programmer.
Open register03Consider
Server scaling, not gameplay
If the hard problem is cloud capacity for game servers, hire a cloud engineer.
Open registerFrame budget as a hiring filter
A game that drops frames feels broken regardless of its ideas. Our profiling exercise starts with a scene that misses its target so candidates must measure before changing anything. Those who guess at fixes without opening the profiler rarely hold a budget across a full production.
For mobile titles, add battery and heat to the conversation.
A sensible first milestone
Give the new programmer a small, visible mechanic to own in their first sprint and have it playable in a nightly build. Pair that with a profiling capture on your lowest target device. Together they show how quickly the person reaches your pipeline and whether they treat performance as part of the feature.
FAQ
Questions to resolve before the build.
01Do you place both Unity and Unreal developers?
Yes. Most candidates are strongest in one engine, so we match them to yours and test them in it. A technical director can advise if you are still choosing.
02Can your game developers build multiplayer?
Senior candidates understand authority, prediction and interpolation and can implement them with your chosen networking stack. Large-scale backend infrastructure usually needs a separate server or cloud engineer.
03Will they help us pass console certification?
Engineers with shipped console titles know the kinds of requirements involved, such as suspend handling and save data integrity. Access to platform documentation still comes through your own developer agreements.
Works alongside
Roles a game developer works best alongside.
01Pair with
Golang developers
Build matchmaking, lobbies and backend services that the game client talks to.
Open register02Pair with
Data analysts
Turn gameplay telemetry into retention, economy and difficulty insights for live-ops.
Open register03Pair with
QA engineers
Run compliance checks and regression passes before each certification submission.
Open registerProduct delivery
Need the whole product built instead?
Primary sources
References behind this page
Dated official documentation, standards, and research that support the factual claims on this page.
- 01Unity Manual: Profiler overview
Official documentation on profiling CPU, GPU and memory in Unity.
- 02Unreal Engine documentation: Networking and multiplayer
Epic’s guide to replication and multiplayer in Unreal Engine.
How to read this page
Scope, cost and timeline figures are planning guidance until confirmed in a written proposal. Diagrams and screens are illustrations, not client deliverables, and source-code rights and handover follow the signed agreement. See the delivery process and the full disclaimer.
Next decision
Turn the brief into an accepted product scope.
Define outcomes, constraints, evidence, rights and handover before delivery begins.
Commercial rights, repositories, environments, documentation, acceptance and handover remain contract-defined.