Unreal Engine Game Developer

Game Developer — Character \& MetaHuman Systems About the Project We are building a large\-scale **UE5\.8 zombie survival game** with a living, procedurally generated world, large zombie populations, randomized survivors, vehicles, animals, weapons, occupations, and a deep character customization system. We are looking for developers who can take ownership of major systems rather than simply completing isolated tasks. Position1(see more below): Character / MetaHuman Developer **Primary responsibility:** Own the game's MetaHuman character pipeline, including clothing, accessories, headwear, customization, and character variation. You will be the **go\-to developer for everything involving MetaHuman clothing and wearable assets.** Responsibilities * Build and maintain the **MetaHuman clothing and accessory pipeline** in Unreal Engine 5\.8\. * Import, configure, and optimize clothing assets for MetaHumans. * Create and maintain **hats, helmets, caps, masks, glasses, backpacks, and other head/body accessories**. * Handle proper fitting, deformation, skinning, physics, and LODs. * Develop systems for dynamically combining clothing and accessories without obvious clipping or broken meshes. * Build a large library of interchangeable clothing and headwear. * Support procedural/randomized survivor generation. * Ensure clothing works across different MetaHuman body types, ages, genders, and character variations. * Integrate clothing with the game's character\-generation and spawning systems. * Create systems for zombies and survivors to use randomized clothing combinations. * Optimize character assets for **large numbers of characters on screen simultaneously**. * Work closely with programmers and technical artists to establish reusable pipelines rather than one\-off solutions. * Maintain clean Unreal asset organization and naming conventions. * Troubleshoot MetaHuman, skeletal mesh, animation, material, physics, and clothing problems. * Eventually help establish a pipeline for automatically generating thousands of believable civilian characters from a large clothing/appearance database. Required Skills * Strong Unreal Engine 5 experience. * Experience working with **MetaHuman**. * Strong understanding of skeletal meshes, skinning, deformation, sockets, materials, LODs, and animation. * Experience with wearable character assets. * Comfortable working with Unreal Blueprints and/or C\+\+. * Ability to diagnose and solve technical character\-art problems independently. * Understanding of performance optimization for games. Highly Desired * MetaHuman clothing workflows. * Chaos Cloth. * Marvelous Designer, CLO, Blender, Maya, or similar. * Technical\-art experience. * Procedural character generation. * PCG experience. * Experience creating modular character systems. * Experience optimizing large numbers of NPCs. * Experience with zombie/horror games or large\-scale crowd systems. Ownership This is **not** a "make me a hat" position. You will own the **entire wearable\-character pipeline** and be responsible for figuring out how we can efficiently go from: **3D clothing asset → MetaHuman integration → fitting/deformation → LODs → physics → customization → procedural randomization → finished NPC** You should be comfortable saying, *"This system is going to break when we have 10,000 NPCs; here's how we should build it instead."* Additional Game Developer PositionsGameplay Programmer Own gameplay systems including: * Player controllers * Combat * Weapons * Inventory * Skills * D\&D\-inspired character mechanics * Occupations/backgrounds * Animal companions * Interaction systems * Quests and objectives * Multiplayer systems * Gameplay AI integration **Skills:** UE5, C\+\+, Blueprints, gameplay architecture, networking, optimization. Position2: AI / NPC Programmer Own the intelligence behind the game's survivors, enemies, animals, and world simulation. * Zombie AI and horde behavior * Survivor AI * NPC decision\-making * Perception * Navigation * Combat behavior * Squad behavior * Animal AI * Dynamic encounters * AI\-assisted dialogue systems * Large\-scale NPC optimization Experience with Unreal AI, Behavior Trees, StateTree, Mass Entity, EQS, navigation, and large\-scale crowds is highly desirable. Technical Artist / Procedural Content Developer Own the systems that allow the game to generate enormous amounts of content. * Unreal PCG * Procedural cities * Buildings * Roads * Vegetation * Interior generation * Loot placement * NPC spawning * Clothing/character randomization * World population * Performance optimization * Tools for designers and artists Experience with **UE5 PCG, World Partition, procedural generation, Houdini, Blender, or technical art** is highly desirable. Position3: Environment Artist Create the physical world of the game. * Buildings * Streets * Interiors * Props * Urban environments * Rural environments * Vegetation * Destruction * Environmental storytelling Experience with Unreal Engine 5 and modular environment construction preferred. Position4: Animation / Character Artist Create and maintain: * Character animations * Combat animations * Zombie animations * Locomotion * Reactions * Death animations * Animal animations * Procedural animation systems * Motion matching * MetaHuman animation Experience with Unreal's animation systems and MetaHumans strongly preferred. What We're Looking For We want **problem solvers and owners**, not people who need every task broken down for them. You should be able to take a major system, understand the goal, research the best approach, build it, test it, optimize it, and maintain it. This is an ambitious project using **Unreal Engine 5\.8, procedural generation, AI\-assisted development, and modular content systems**. Developers who enjoy building systems that can scale dramatically are especially welcome. **If you want to own a major piece of a game rather than simply be another programmer on a production line, we'd like to hear from you.** Pay: $42\.73 \- $51\.46 per hour People with a criminal record are encouraged to apply Work Location: Remote