What You’ll Lead and Deliver
- Be the first engineer on the project - establish pipelines and workflows for engineering and art, pick which technologies to use and help guide artists and designers to achieve project goals.
Lead the technical direction and implementation of core gameplay and runtime systems in the engine.
Partner closely with design and content teams to build high quality and fun experiences.
Drive engineering quality across gameplay code, emphasizing performance, maintainability, extensibility, and production-readiness.
Establish engineering best practices for Unreal Engine 5 development, including code review standards, debugging workflows, profiling habits, and technical planning.
Collaborate with technical leadership to break down risks, define implementation strategies, and align engineering execution with project goals and production timelines.
Mentor engineers through design reviews, hands-on problem solving, and day-to-day technical guidance. Contribute to hiring, onboarding, and raising the overall quality bar of the team.
Communicate clearly with stakeholders about technical constraints, trade-offs, dependencies, and execution plans.
You’ll Thrive Here If You
Have 5+ years of professional game development experience, with demonstrated technical leadership through project ownership, mentorship, and setting engineering standards.
Have strong professional experience with C++ and Unreal Engine, including gameplay architecture, runtime systems, debugging, and optimization.
Enjoy being jack-of-all-trades, getting your hands dirty and solving problems across all engineering spectrum including engine, gameplay, build systems, automation.
Have deep experience building and maintaining gameplay systems that are responsive, scalable, and designer-friendly.
Are comfortable working across systems boundaries, collaborating with multiple disciplines, and balancing short-term production needs with long-term technical health.
Bring a strong ownership mindset, practical decision-making, and a focus on helping teams move effectively under production constraints.
Bonus XP
Experience with the modern Unreal Engine 5 systems, like Metahuman, Nanite, Lumen.
Shipped at least one title on PS5, Xbox Series X|S, and or Nintendo hardware, especially in platform, performance, or engine roles.
Familiarity with Perforce, Jenkins, Unreal Build System, Unreal Gauntlet.
Experience with Linux.
Skills Required
- 5+ years of professional game development experience
- Strong professional experience with C++ and Unreal Engine (gameplay architecture, runtime systems, debugging, optimization)
- Experience building and maintaining responsive, scalable, designer-friendly gameplay systems
- Experience across engine, gameplay, build systems, and automation; ability to establish pipelines and workflows
- Proven technical leadership: project ownership, mentorship, setting engineering standards
- Ability to work and reside legally in Canada (must be eligible to work in Canada and reside in Canada)
- Availability for Pacific-time overlap
- Experience with modern Unreal Engine 5 systems (Metahuman, Nanite, Lumen)
- Shipped at least one title on PS5, Xbox Series X|S, or Nintendo hardware (platform/performance/engine roles preferred)
- Familiarity with Perforce, Jenkins, Unreal Build System, Unreal Gauntlet
- Experience with Linux
What We Do
Blackbird Interactive (BBI) is a creative-fueled, future-driven, independent studio - behind such games as Homeworld: Deserts of Kharak, Hardspace: Shipbreaker, and the upcoming Homeworld 3, Minecraft Legends, and Crossfire: Legion. Founded by Rob Cunningham, Yossarian King, and Aaron Kambeitz in 2010, the award-winning Vancouver studio boast its own internal CG cinematics department, led by the founder of Pixar Canada, and has also been involved in various game-adjacent projects over the years - such as Project Eagle with the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and other initiatives with the eatART Foundation and Sanctuary AI.
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