The Senior Network Programmer should have direct experience implementing networking into online games under a variety of scenarios. He or she has had to make things fit where they probably shouldn’t, has had to use unconventional techniques to make ends meet, but has ultimately gotten the job done and created an error-tolerant infrastructure capable of supporting multiple players simultaneously in real time circumstances.
Responsibilities:
- Assess game design and advise on networking strategies required, along with all limitations and drawbacks
- Develop clean gameplay interfaces and implement backend required for online games
- Create schedules and task breakdowns for production and planning purposes
- Work directly with gameplay implementers, including programmers and designers, ensuring that code and content is created appropriately to support networked games
- Develop comprehensive debug framework, including unit tests, multi-player emulation on single console, full world state synchronization checks, replay abilities, in-game visualization, automated games, offline tools, etc.
- Implement surrounding/supporting infrastructure related to online game sessions and other forms of player persistence, including lobbies, match-making, leaderboards, custom server-side storage and applications, etc.
Qualifications:
- Familiarity with Xbox LIVE, PSN, and PC-based online frameworks
- Thorough understanding of current console-based networking strategies to support a wide-range of game types and genres, along with their tradeoffs
- Thorough understanding and experience with issues of determinism, synchronization, latency, bandwidth, staggered updating, serialization, compression, encryption, etc.
- Experience with client/server (including scenarios of dedicated/remote server and server-on-player’s-box), as well as peer-to-peer
- Experience integrating 3rd party networking libraries into existing code base
- Experience with UDP (including reliable and connected UDP), and TCP/IP General Programming Qualifications
- One or more shipped game titles
- Fluency in C++
- Experience working in large teams with shared code bases
- Good communication skills with members of all game development disciplines
- Ability to recognize tradeoffs and make tough decisions for the better of the project
- Experience with low-level programming on Xbox 360, PS3, or other console
To apply: send an email with resume and link to online portfolio/code/art samples to jobs@signalstudios.net – specify the job title you are applying for in the subject line.