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Gardens Interactive is a fully remote game studio building multiplayer fantasy adventures centered on connection and emergent storytelling. The studio was founded by veteran creators behind acclaimed titles including Journey, What Remains of Edith Finch, Blaseball, Dustforce, Ashen, Guild Wars 2, and Baldur's Gate 3.
As Lead Game Engineer, you will manage and mentor a team of game engineers while remaining hands-on with development. Your responsibilities span three core areas:
Team Leadership: You'll manage the Gameplay Engineering team, setting goals, conducting 1:1s, providing feedback, and supporting career development. You'll own team processes including planning, code review standards, bug triage, and work scoping/estimation. You'll also recruit and interview technical talent and foster a healthy, high-trust engineering culture at studio scale.
Hands-on Development: You'll review pull requests, debug complex cross-system issues (especially multiplayer sync, performance, and stability), and prototype or build gameplay systems when needed. This is not a pure management role—you'll stay technically engaged.
Cross-functional Collaboration: You'll partner closely with game design, art, and production to scope features and align engineering with creative vision. You'll work with the Technical Director on technical roadmaps and communicate engineering status, risks, and trade-offs to studio leadership.
Required qualifications: 6+ years professional game development with shipped Unreal Engine titles; 2+ years directly managing or leading engineers (formal management, tech lead, or team lead experience); strong C++ and Blueprint skills; hands-on experience with online multiplayer systems (replication, client-server architecture, netcode); solid software architecture and design pattern knowledge; cross-functional production experience; comfort with high ownership in lean teams; strong communication skills.
Nice-to-have: live-service or post-launch multiplayer shipping experience; independent or mid-size studio background; performance profiling and optimization expertise.
You'll report to the Technical Director and lead the Gameplay Engineering team. The studio values curiosity, adaptability, pragmatism, thoughtful communication, and commitment to collective success. Applicants must be legally authorized to work in the US or Canada and willing to work within EST-PST time zones.
