[Hiring] Senior Software Engineer @UneeQ

Role Description

This is a hands-on, high-impact role for a Senior Software Engineer who’s excited to build and evolve our core real-time 3D application (built on Unreal Engine) that powers UneeQ’s digital humans. While Unreal is at the heart of the role, it’s not game development only; you’ll also work across broader platform integrations and emerging technologies to help deliver high-quality, real-time digital human experiences.

We’re a remote-first company, so you’ll need to be comfortable working independently, owning outcomes, and collaborating asynchronously with a small, distributed team. If you’re based in Auckland (or New Zealand), there are opportunities to connect in person from time to time, including our co-working space and occasional meetups, but the role can also be based remotely (NZ or USA).

There’s plenty of room to make your mark. You’ll help improve performance, extend features, and integrate key systems around the Unreal application (including areas like streaming, machine learning, and integrations with our other cloud-based services). You’ll work closely with other senior engineers, and you’ll be trusted to bring a positive, adaptable mindset - someone who enjoys solving complex problems, learning new tools (including AI coding tools), and contributing to a culture of shared ownership and continuous improvement.

Your week will balance focused engineering time with lightweight team collaboration. You’ll join stand-ups a couple of times a week to align with the team, unblock work, and share progress, along with a weekly planning session for the Unreal-based rendering application and occasional ad-hoc discussions when deeper collaboration is needed.

Most days, you’ll work hands-on in our Unreal Engine-based digital human application, contributing to features, performance, and overall system quality. As we’re not building a traditional game, the role also involves working across parts of the wider platform - integrating with services such as text-to-speech, real-time streaming (WebRTC), and cloud infrastructure (AWS). You’ll often own work end-to-end, with regular code reviews and design discussions to ensure a high technical standard.

You’ll work closely with senior engineers in the platform team, particularly your day-to-day counterpart, and collaborate as needed with adjacent technical teams that build on top of the platform. Your responsibilities will include:

• Developing and enhancing features within our digital human application to improve quality and user engagement
• Investigate and implement performance optimisation opportunities
• Integrate other platform systems into the game engine
• Research, experiment and implement (if appropriate) the latest techniques in graphics - such as machine learning based animation
• Support other team members that use the game engine by debugging engine issues or providing expert support
• Keep up to date with the latest developments in the industry and specific to our game engine
• Provide thought leadership in real-time 3D related elements of our platform
• Work with technical artists and animators to develop scalable pipelines for character creation
• Support technical artists and animators do their best work by developing tools and systems to facilitate this

Qualifications

• Experienced in the games industry or interactive real-time 3D graphics development
• Highly experienced with C/C++, with hands-on experience using real-time rendering APIs such as Vulkan, DirectX, or similar
• Experienced working with Unreal Engine 5
• Strong in general software engineering, including integrating a rendering system with other platform services (e.g. messaging systems, backend services)
• Comfortable using AI-assisted coding tools as part of your development workflow
• Strong in 3D mathematics, including vectors and transformation matrices
• Experienced in CPU and GPU optimisation
• Comfortable using metrics and data to understand how code performs in production and to inform decisions
• Comfortable building, improving, and maintaining build systems

Requirements

• Proven problem-solving and debugging skills, including the ability to track down issues in unfamiliar or legacy codebases
• Strong hands-on experience working in Linux environments, with confidence using Linux as a primary development platform and ensuring applications also run reliably on Windows for use by other teams (e.g. art and animation)
• Awareness of current industry trends, tooling, and best practices in computer graphics and real-time 3D development

Benefits

• Join a global team with colleagues from around the world
• Annual learning allowance to support your professional growth
• Health insurance coverage
• Wellness allowance (for NZ & AU employees)
• An extra week of annual leave (for NZ & AU employees)
• Participation in our annual Company Summit - yes, we fly in all our employees from around the world!
• Flexibility to work from other locations for short periods
• Work in a leading industry, creating innovative AI solutions that have never been tried before!