Senior Online Game Programmer

Synthesis 

Synthesis makes team thinking games that turn kids into effective decision-makers and communicators. Our co-founder Josh developed the concept for Synthesis when he was director of SpaceX's Ad Astra school. We are seeking Software Engineers to help us create world-class collaborative problem-solving video games.

The individual filling this role will work on building multi-participant web applications that bring together children and teens from all around the world. If you are a self-starter who enjoys working in a fast-paced, collaborative environment, then we want to talk to you!

Why making games at Synthesis is different:

• Our job is to make compelling, rich games that keep students coming back;
• Our games contain no monetization. Parents pay a subscription to have their kids play with us because they believe in our product. Dev teams don't need to focus on how to make money, they focus on how to provide the best experience for our users;
• We have one of the best platforms in the world for iterating our game designs. We get to see our students playing our games weekly and get their feedback;
• We don't spend years creating something that no one can touch. We launch games quickly and let our users help shape the product along the way;
• We work on different styles and genres constantly. Our goal is to launch 3 or more games per year.
• It's a joy to see the progress students make while playing our games. We're turning them into super-collaborators, one game at a time!

Primary responsibilities for this position include:

• Building high-performance, web-based video games.
• Rapid prototyping, feature development, UI implementation, and integration of art assets.
• Pragmatic technical decision-making to ensure we're delivering high-quality software as quickly as possible.
• Incremental improvements and simplifications to all aspects of the development process and codebase in order to improve development velocity, scalability, and deployment flexibility.
• Collaboratively working with game designers, artists and fellow developers.
• Define architectures for new projects and lead teams through development.

Job requirements:

Candidates, at a minimum, must have the following:

• 5+ years of professional experience working in video game development.
• A professional development portfolio including at least three shipped products.
• In-depth game systems programming experience.
• Extensive experience with programming languages (JavaScript and/or TypeScript experience is a huge plus).

Desired skills:

• Highly organized and productive within a remote working environment.
• Work with an iterative mindset, being open and able to make continuous improvements to the projects.
• Strong communication and collaboration with engineers and stakeholders.
• Growth mindset with a desire to learn quickly from your more experienced peers.

Nice to have:

• Experience with video game development tools including engines, IDEs and middleware solutions.
• Knowledge of current web programming technologies.
• Network multiplayer development experience.
• Development using Colyseus and Node.js.
• A gamer at heart.

Benefits

Compensation & Benefits

• Competitive compensation (benchmarked to California regardless of location)
• Meaningful equity (including optional early exercise)
• 100% covered health insurance for you & your dependents (including medical, dental, vision)
• 401(k) plan with company matching
• Flexible time off
• Flexible parental leave

*Some benefits (such as medical and 401k) apply to US employees only.