HareBrainedSchemes Job Openings

Harebrained Schemes currently has the following positions open. Please read the job descriptions carefully and follow the directions below to apply.

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TECHNICAL ART DIRECTOR, BATTLETECH

Harebrained Schemes seeks a versatile Technical Art Director to lead our art production team in bringing the BattleTech universe to life in Unity 5. The ideal candidate has shipped multiple Unity-based titles as a Technical Art Lead, has a proven history of cross-discipline collaboration across art, engineering and design, and a firm grasp of both character and environment art production pipelines. If this sounds like you, please review the job description below and get in touch. Help us make an amazing BattleTech game!

This is a full-time, on-site position at Harebrained Schemes’ offices in Kirkland, Washington.

What You’ll Do 

  • Collaborate with the Creative Director, Engineering Lead and art team to fully realize the game’s visual target within Unity.
  • Lead the design and implementation of all necessary 3D art pipelines and workflow.
  • Troubleshoot and solve technical art production issues.
  • Work with our engineering team to develop tools, scripts, and plugins as needed to streamline art workflows, and to source off-the shelf solutions when appropriate.
  • During pre-production, participate heavily in design, art, and engineering planning to determine and address any technical design requirements and issues.
  • During production, manage and train a team of 3D production artists, adding to their skills if necessary to effectively execute the game’s art pipeline.
  • Strive to maximize art production performance and predictability.

Required XP

  • You have 5+ years professional experience in the game industry with several shipped 3D titles (and at least two years using Unity to ship one or more titles).
  • You’re fluent in interpreting concept art and understand how to interpret and bring an art style to life in a real-time environment.
  • Extensive knowledge and experience in game rendering – lighting, effects, atmospherics, post-processing, physically-based rendering, etc.
  • You know how to budget and design for performant art without sacrificing overall visual quality.
  • You’re comfortable setting up an animation and effects sequence pipeline.
  • You’re comfortable scripting in Unity and Maya.
  • You know all the stuff we’d expect you to know about art: color, value, lighting, composition, creating focus, atmospheric perspective, and so on.
  • You know how to lead – people, processes, and thinking. You’re positive, proactive, organized, and comfortable determining the tasks and priorities of others and yourself without a lot of hand-holding.
  • You can give clear, actionable verbal and written art feedback that adds real value.
  • Nobody else has a good answer? You say, “Challenge accepted.”
  • You love working with others – ‘cause you’ll be stuck working with us, and we’re a highly-collaborative bunch.

Bonus XP

  • You’re a longtime BattleTech fan!
  • Experience developing a character art pipeline involving highly modular character components.
  • Concept art skills.

WANT TO APPLY?

Email jobs@hbs-studios.com. Please include your resume, contact information, and the name of the position you’re applying for.

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SENIOR AI ENGINEER

Harebrained Schemes is looking for a senior AI Engineer. The ideal candidate has shipped multiple titles, has professional Unity experience, has led AI implementation in at least one instance, has a comprehensive knowledge of AI related problems and their solutions, and is comfortable working with the design and production teams to specify and implement an AI authoring system. We hope you can come and join us in bringing BattleTech to life!

This is a full-time, on-site position at Harebrained Schemes’ offices in Kirkland, Washington.

What You’ll Do 

  • Work with the engineering and design teams to determine all AI requirements.
  • Directly oversee or implement all aspects of the Artificial Intelligence.
  • Work closely with designers and animators to develop a core set of believable and fun AI behaviors.
  • Collaborate with the design team and the engineering lead to develop a stable and performant AI authoring system.
  • Design, implement, and maintain strategic, efficient, and realistic path finding and path following algorithms as well as formation and grouping algorithms.
  • Develop and maintain network ready code to ensure that it meets all requirements: client/server state replications, latency, synchronization, cheating, etc.
  • Develop reliable real-time debugging tools to enable designers and QA to help pinpoint problem areas.
  • Assist as a generalist game programmer where needed.
  • Work with code re-usability and extensibility in mind.
  • Assist in scheduling and task estimation where relevant.
  • Maintain code performance.
  • Mentor junior developers.

Required XP

  • You have 5+ years professional experience in the game industry with several shipped 3D titles (and at least two years using Unity to ship one or more titles).
  • You’ve led or otherwise been the primary contributor to the AI implementation in at least one shipped title.
  • You have extensive knowledge and passion concerning AI problems and their solutions in games.
  • You are highly competent working in C# and comfortable with other scripting/programming languages.
  • You are confident in your ability to design a comprehensive AI solution from the ground up, as well as offer reliable schedule estimates for each required component.
  • You are comfortable working with others in a highly-collaborative, fun, and agile environment.

Bonus XP

  • Familiarity with the BattleTech universe.
  • Experience developing tools and making them easy to use.

WANT TO APPLY?

Email jobs@hbs-studios.com. Please include your resume, contact information, and the name of the position you’re applying for.

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ENGINEER (TOOLS)

Harebrained schemes needs a versatile, tools-focused Unity engineer to ensure all content creators have an efficient and productive experience creating BattleTech.

This is a full-time, on-site position at Harebrained Schemes’ offices in Kirkland, Washington.

What You’ll Do 

  • Work closely with the lead engineer, and various content creator groups to design and implement tools that fit their needs.
  • Work with the art and technical art leads to develop custom import/pipeline tools as needed.
  • Create and maintain custom Unity Editor enhancements to support artists, animators, audio engineers, and designers.
  • Develop and maintain support scripts as needed in multiple environments (python, php, shell scripts).
  • Review potential 3rd party, Asset Store, and middleware solutions and weigh them against internal development benefits.
  • Collaborate with the lead engineer to implement and maintain a custom build system.
  • Assist as a generalist programmer where needed.
  • Work with code re-usability and extensibility in mind.
  • Provide realistic task estimations based on your own ability.
  • Strive to constantly improve the usability of all tools

Required XP

  • You have 3+ years professional experience in the game industry with several shipped 3D titles (and at least one shipped Unity title).
  • At least one year of focused tools development for a large team.
  • You are highly competent working in C# and comfortable with other scripting/programming languages.
  • Familiarity with 3rd party tools and middleware solutions for design, art, animation, and audio.
  • Excellent communication skills.
  • You are comfortable working with others in a highly-collaborative, fun, and agile environment.
  • A passion for improving the lives of others with your skills!

Bonus XP

  • Familiarity with the BattleTech universe.
  • Familiarity with web technologies (html, css, javascript).
  • Knowledge of multiple game asset formats and the scripting tools used to create them (maya, photoshop).
  • Experience as an artist or designer, as a hobbyist or professional.

WANT TO APPLY?

Email jobs@hbs-studios.com. Please include your resume, contact information, and the name of the position you’re applying for.

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GAMEPLAY ENGINEER (Contract)

Harebrained Schemes is looking to hire a generalist Unity contractor to help with prototyping gameplay concepts for our upcoming BattleTech game.

This is a temporary, on-site contract position at Harebrained Schemes’ offices in Kirkland, Washington.

What You’ll Do 

  • Serve as a generalist gameplay programmer in C# for Unity.
  • Collaborate with the design, engineering, and production teams to maximize your contributions.
  • Prototype and iterate quickly to test and prove out gameplay and UI/UX features.
  • Provide realistic task estimations based on your own ability.
  • Assist in evaluating various middleware solutions.

Required XP

  • You have 2 or more years of experience as a professional game programmer with at least one shipped title.
  • You have 1 or more years of professional Unity development experience.
  • You are an excellent C# programmer.
  • You have a broad knowledge of game technologies and tools.
  • You have good communication skills and are comfortable working in a highly-collaborative environment.

Bonus XP

  • You’ve shipped a modern Unity title.
  • Some experience with web technologies (html, css, javascript).
  • You are passionate for turn-based tactical games, BattleTech experience is a plus!

WANT TO APPLY?

Email jobs@hbs-studios.com. Please include your resume, contact information, and the name of the position you’re applying for.
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HBS is dedicated to diversity in our organization, including but not limited to: race, gender identity, sexual orientation, age, religion, culture, and opinion. We believe that the strongest ideas are the result of respectful debate by people of different backgrounds and perspectives. To us the game is served by the best idea, regardless of its origin on the team. 

Published by cypheroftyr

Tanya DePass is the founder and Director of I Need Diverse Games, a non-profit organization based in Chicago, which is dedicated to better diversification of all aspects of gaming. I Need Diverse Games serves the community by supporting marginalized developers attend the Game Developer Conference by participating in the GDC Scholarship program, helps assist attendance at other industry events, and is seeking partnership with organizations and initiatives. Tanya is a lifelong Chicagoan who loves everything about gaming, #INeedDiverseGames spawn point, and wants to make it better and more inclusive for everyone. She founded and was the EIC of Fresh Out of Tokens podcast where games culture was discussed and viewed through a lense of feminism, intersectionality and diversity. Now she’s a co-host on Spawn on Me Podcast. Along with all of that, she’s the Programming Coordinator for OrcaCon, she often speaks on issues of diversity, feminism, race, intersectionality & other topics at multiple conventions throughout the year. Her writing about games and games critique appears in Uncanny Magazine, Polygon, Wiscon Chronicles, Vice Gaming, Paste Games, Mic, and other publications.