Lead Gameplay Programmer – Unreal Engine/Mobile (UK Based) Full Time

About BFB Labs

BFB Labs provides digital therapeutics for better youth mental health and is revolutionising the way children access and engage with therapeutic support. Our products fuse evidence-based therapeutic approaches with immersive and responsible gaming making them highly engaging, scientifically robust and cost-effective.

The Role

We have a unique and exciting opportunity for a passionate and experienced game developer with an interest in health technologies to join our team as a Lead Gameplay Programmer.

You will be working as the Lead Gameplay Programmers for our CE marked, Software as a Medical Device therapeutic mobile game ‘Lumi Nova: Tales of Courage’. Lumi Nova  is an intergalactic themed adventure for 7-12 year olds that provides exposure therapy. Players take on in-game and out of game exposure challenges to progress through different worlds in order to complete their goal and save the universe.

In this role, you will be able to make a real impact on the future of development and growth of all our mobile products – current and future ones. You will bring your knowledge and experience to help push the boundaries of our therapeutic games.

Key Responsibilities

This is a rare opportunity to own and shape the future development of an existing game and build your own lean team. You’ll be responsible for maintaining the health of the existing mobile game and implementing new gameplay features and clinical content to meet business and clinical needs. Our therapeutic games go through several levels of validation and scrutiny to ensure they are clinically safe for use. You will take onboard input from different advisors (clinical, content etc.) and work closely with the CEO and Product Lead to build and maintain high quality gameplay systems and guide the development of Lumi Nova: Tales of Courage.

On a day-to-day basis, you will:

• Take responsibility for hiring, leading, and mentoring a lean development team and work with freelancers where required

• Collaborate with designers and artists to create high-quality gameplay features, including contributing to the design and iteration of those features

• Work with the CEO and Head of Product in scoping and planning future work for your team, balancing technical and project requirements

• Build and maintain well-engineered Unreal Engine code with high levels of stability and performance

• Contribute to and support the technical roadmap of existing and future therapeutic games

Knowledge, Skills and Experience 

Essential

• 3 years games industry experience working in a senior capacity

• Strong Unreal Engine programming ability, with knowledge of the latest standards

• Experience of Unreal Engine mobile game development

• Experience in Apple/Google Play/Amazon app store submission

• Passion and interest in games and game development

• Knowledge of major Unreal editor systems

• Performance profiling, optimisation and refactoring experience.

• Well versed in games and able to criticise what is strong/weak about existing games/systems

• Experience in implementing analytics and data hooks into a web service

• Knowledge of integrating 3rd party libraries/APIs: AI, Procedural Geometry, Backend Servers a plus

• Experience of a complete game development lifecycle from pre-production, through to post-release support

Desirable

• Experience of leading a team towards the release of a commercial game project

• Broad gaming experience and a sense for good game design

• An avid gamer with knowledge of games designed for children and young people

• General knowledge of 3D asset creation pipelines and ability to create placeholder meshes and materials for prototyping

• Interest/experience in health technologies is a bonus!

Diversity

As a diverse team we are keen to receive applications from people of all backgrounds, ages, and types of formal or informal education. All applicants must have the right to work in the UK.

Working pattern

We work flexibly and have access to a lovely co-working space in Central London that we use at varying frequencies. We are open to candidates who may like to work remotely, or from our office space.

Great things about working here

• Female led and diverse company

• Driven, go-getting culture

• Multi-award winning company

• Company previously backed by the NHS, Innovate UK and partnerships with NIHR funded medtech cooperative, University of Reading and others in health care and academia.

• We are an early stage enterprise, so you’ll be responsible for helping grow the team

Salary

Dependent on experience

How to apply

To apply please send your CV with a Cover Letter to nabeena@bfb-labs.com explaining why you think you are suited to this role.

The application deadline is 1st July 2022  (applications will be reviewed as they are received)

If your application fits with the requirements of this role then we will organise an interview via Zoom. We will maintain a high level of confidentiality for all applicants.

Timings

We are looking for the right person to be able to start at a 1 month notice period.