Godot Engineer (Freelance or Full-Time, d/f/m)

As a Godot Engineer, you will be responsible for building our game worlds using the Godot Game Engine.

At the time of your employment, you will be working on our debut game, Waters of Sal Naména, which presents unique challenges for an engineer through its combination of 2D and 3D graphics and its Game Boy-inspired aesthetic.

Deine Aufgaben

Your main responsibilities will include:

• Architecture and Data Structures: You will develop a robust and maintainable software architecture and design data structures that meet the requirements of our game.
• GDScript Programming: You will implement gameplay systems, interactions, game logic, and user interfaces in GDScript.
• Editor Usage: You create scenes and Custom Resources, animations, TileMaps, and other components in the Godot Editor.
• Deployment: You will prepare our game for different target platforms and ensure that builds can be created and tested reliably.
• Version Control: You will work with Git and maintain a clean and traceable version history.

What You Bring

• Fundamentals of Software Engineering: You are familiar with the principles of Clean Code and understand how to keep code readable, testable, understandable, maintainable, scalable, and extensible. You understand the differences between declarative and imperative as well as statically and dynamically typed code, and are familiar with duck typing, type casting, object-oriented programming (inheritance, composition, polymorphism, encapsulation), and modularization. You should also have a good understanding of handling user input.
• Fundamentals of Game Engineering: You have knowledge of areas such as behavior trees, state machines, shaders, hierarchical modeling in computer graphics, tilemaps, collision systems, context-sensitive user input, input devices, animation, and rendering.
• Working with the Godot Game Engine: You are familiar with the Godot Editor and its fundamental data structures and classes, particularly the SceneTree, Scenes, Nodes, and Resources. You know how Groups, Shaders, Tools, Globals, and Signals are used, and understand how to implement hierarchical modeling, encapsulation, modularization, animation, collisions, and user input in Godot. Experience with Godot plugins and audio is a plus.
• UML Diagrams: You can read UML diagrams and use them to express intended software architectures.
• Struktur und Organisation: You work in an organized manner and independently question the methods and structures we use to engineer our product.
• Communication, Teamwork & Ability to Give and Receive Feedback: So-called “soft skills” are highly important to us. You are reflective, can articulate your thoughts clearly, bridge semantic gaps, and are open to giving and receiving constructive feedback.
• Sprache: You are fluent in either German or English and can use your chosen language for day-to-day communication within the team.

Nice to Have

Having experience or at least an interest in one or more of the following areas will make your application even more compelling. The disciplines are listed in descending order of our current priorities:

• Shader: You can write shaders in Godot.
• Godot Plugins: You have experience with plugins such as Phantom Camera, Dialogic 2, LimboAI, G.U.I.D.E, or GodotSteam.
• HTML, CSS, JavaScript: You have experience with web development, particularly HTML, CSS, and JavaScript.
• Unit Testing: You have experience with unit testing and know how to reliably test critical components of a codebase.
• C++: You can write C++ code and, for example, contribute to the source code of Godot or its plugins.

What We Offer

• 32 to 40 hours per week for permanent employment, depending on whether you are looking for part-time or full-time work
• Flexible working hours through a combination of core hours and flexitime

How to Apply

Professional experience, references, and résumés are not particularly important to us. Instead, we want to be convinced by a meaningful portfolio that demonstrates your skills and, above all, your passion for the technical side of game development.

Send your application to jobs@distantmeadows.com and make sure it includes work that demonstrate that you…

• are comfortable working with the Godot Engine, ideally including a Godot project consisting of…
  • larger and/or multiple scenes
  • GDScript code
• have relevant skills in some of our nice-to-have areas, such as…
  • Shaders
  • Use cases for Godot plugins such as LimboAI, Phantom Camera, Dialogic 2, G.U.I.D.E, or GodotSteam
  • Web development
  • Unit testing

Ideally show us that you know how to develop more complex games with Godot. We are particularly interested in personal projects, code samples, or other work that allows us to assess your technical skills.

If, like us, you have a passion for and experience with open-source tools, are generally interested in FOSS, or even actively contribute to the community in a constructive way, please mention this in your application. Also let us know whether you would prefer to work remotely, from our office in Nuremberg, or are open to either option.

IMPORTANT:

• Sprache: If you are fluent in German, you do not have to write your application in English. You are very welcome to submit it in German instead.
• Timeline: We are currently receiving a very large number of applications. Please understand that we cannot respond immediately or individually to every submission. This is only the beginning of an application process that will certainly take several weeks. We therefore kindly ask for your patience! As long as this job posting is online, the positions have not yet been filled. Once the process has concluded, we will announce it on social media and here on our website.
• AI: We ask that you create your portfolio without AI, or at least clearly indicate where AI has been used. For our purposes, “using AI” means anything beyond the most basic ideation during the conceptual phase and autocomplete when programming.
• Kontakt: Please refrain from contacting us personally via LinkedIn, Discord, or other channels. Doing so will have no influence on whether or when we review your application. Even without such interruptions, we are working as quickly as we can. If you need a response from us sooner due to an overlapping application process or similar circumstances, simply send us another email. And don’t worry: we also check our spam folder every day. So far, every message has reached us!