Who we are:
PikPok is a global video game studio with more than 25 years of experience, with offices in New Zealand and Colombia. In New Zealand, we operate as a medium-sized company, while the current structure in Colombia is that of a small business. Our team is multicultural, making English the primary working language.
We have a portfolio that spans games at various stages of the product lifecycle, supported by diverse revenue models, with a presence on mobile, PC, consoles, and virtual reality platforms. Today, we distribute our titles in more than 30 countries, connecting with players around the world.
About the role:
We are looking for an Experienced Programmer who understands project context and takes a proactive, self-directed role in planning and delivering product goals and features. This role goes beyond individual contribution, requiring tactical accountability for team outcomes and the ability to resolve complex technical roadblocks through critical thinking. You will strengthen team capability through mentorship, improve development workflows, and ensure consistent alignment with current technical and project objectives, contributing to a mature, collaborative engineering culture.
Our ideal candidate is not a pre-existing perfect fit but an individual who is curious and eager to learn, with the core skills and knowledge to succeed in this role. If this role excites you and you're passionate about growing with us, we strongly encourage your application.
The Experienced Programmer’s responsibilities include:
- Drive the end-to-end technical implementation of core features, gameplay systems, and platform ports to deliver high-quality, performant, and reusable systems on schedule.
- Lead the technical design of core game systems and technical solutions, authoring comprehensive design documents and specifications to create technical designs that support rapid iteration, high performance, and drive development efficiency across the team.
- Contribute to supporting and maintaining our codebase by identifying and refactoring redundant logic to ensure our legacy systems remain readable and stable.
- Take ownership of project performance, diagnosing and resolving complex, ambiguous technical issues and bottlenecks across CPU, GPU, and Memory to ensure the game consistently hits target framerates across all hardware tiers.
- Facilitate and promote transparency and effective communication within the development team and across disciplines to ensure technical requirements are clearly understood, aligned project goals, and executed efficiently.
- Be a key partner to Producers Managers in governing the project's technical output to ensure that every system built is strategically aligned with our long-term technical and company goals.
- Mentor junior developers by guiding them through complex challenges and sharing expertise to build their independence and strengthen technical excellence across the team.
Requirements
The Experienced Programmer’s required knowledge and experience should include:
- Advanced knowledge in Unity 3D and its execution model, memory management, multithreading, graphics pipelines (URP/HDRP), batching, and shader development.
- Demonstrated ability to architect and implement scalable, loosely coupled, and maintainable core game systems and technical solutions that reduce technical debt and support long-term feature growth.
- Advanced knowledge of Profiling tools and performance impact analysis, and the ability to reason about performance trade-offs at system level (not just feature-level optimization)
- Experience designing and developing scalable Unity Editor tools and workflows that have measurably reduced iteration time, and empowered cross-functional teams to work more efficiently and independently.
- Advanced knowledge of conflict resolution and how to give constructive feedback that focuses on logic and architecture rather than just style, to deliver performance reviews and code feedback that actually changes behavior
- Demonstrated experience communicating complex ideas clearly and confidently to diverse stakeholders (technical and non-technical).
- Intermediate knowledge of the English language (B2 or higher) to communicate effectively with cross-disciplinary teams. (assessed)
Other desirable knowledge
- Experience integrating REST APIs, socket-based communication, and service-oriented architectures within production environments (e.g., PlayFab, AWS)..
- Experience developing and shipping multiplayer networked games, including client-server architecture, synchronization, and latency management.
- Experience designing and optimizing Mixed and Virtual Reality pipelines.
Benefits
Employee benefits
- Hybrid work. PikPok has a flexible approach to splitting your time between working in the office and working from home.
- Health insurance.
- One-time home buyer bonus.
- Staff referral recruitment bonus.
- Partial rebate on mobile phone and tablet upgrades.
- Monthly self-directed Lab Days, annual game jams, and a variety of training and learning opportunities.
