Systems Engineer; Senior​/Principal​/Lead

Hybrid, Irvine, California, United States

What's the one game you couldn't put down? The game that connected you with friends, and made you feel like you belonged? If a game has ever defined a chapter of your life, then you already know the spark we’re chasing. Our mission is to ignite that same feeling for players; the thrill of competition, the joy of community, and the belonging of finding your own corner of a larger world.

Great games begin with people who dare to dream big. If that sounds exciting, you might be exactly who we’re looking for.

Bonfire is a group of experienced and ambitious developers, proud to be creating our first original IP:
Arkheron
. It is a fast-paced, competitive PVP game set in a surreal dark fantasy world where 15 teams of three battle their way up the Tower. In a world built from memories, you will loot powerful items to create and adapt a unique build-out that will change your strategy and combat experience with every Ascension.

On the Engineering team at Bonfire, it is about more than code. For us, it's essential to build a deep understanding and intuitive sense of what makes our game special through our players' hearts and minds. Guided by this sensibility, we form close partnerships with artists and designers to challenge ourselves, exploring creative and fun ways to evolve the game together.

We ruthlessly prioritize what matters most and continually weigh trade-offs in our pursuit of making both playing and building our game feel great.

As a Systems Engineer, you’ll help design, optimize, and evolve the foundational technology that powers our first game. Your work will focus on engine-level systems, optimizations (PC, consoles, server), and netcode in Unity (using DOTS via C# and C/C++), creating the tools and infrastructure that empower both our developers and our players. This role is highly collaborative — you’ll partner with engineers, designers, and other leads across the studio to push technology forward, solve complex problems, and make the entire team more effective.

Whether you’re debugging low-level issues, optimizing pipelines, or shaping systems that scale for live service, you’ll have the opportunity to influence the core of our game and contribute across many areas of development.

• Building and optimizing the foundational engine systems in Unity/DOTS (C# and C/C++), ensuring tools and tech run efficiently for both developers and players.
• Collaborating with internal and external leads to improve engine platform capabilities (performance, console features, anti-cheat protection) and improve team workflows.
• Tackling projects such as optimizing iteration pipelines, building maintainable live-editable profiling systems, and enhancing runtime systems like rendering, streaming, and netcode.
• Jumping into other areas as needed (from audio to UI to gameplay systems) to support the broader team.
• Creating tools and APIs that make developers’ lives easier, helping the team deliver high-quality content faster.
• Contributing beyond core engineering, leaning on your passions and perspectives to help the studio grow together.

• Have experience with custom or heavily modified engines for AAA games on PC and modern consoles, with multiple shipped titles.
• Bring deep technical knowledge in areas like multi-threaded architecture, asynchronous programming, and ECS paradigms.
• Enjoy solving tough problems — whether debugging elusive issues or optimizing complex systems.
• Thrive on curiosity and adaptability, eager to dive into new areas and unfamiliar code.
• Value collaboration, trust, and diverse perspectives, building strong partnerships across the studio.
• Embrace a growth mindset, caring about your own development and supporting others in theirs.
• Carry a genuine passion for both technology and the creative process of making games.

• You prefer working only within well-defined boundaries, because this role requires diving into unfamiliar systems and solving problems across multiple areas.
• You’re most comfortable in environments with rigid hierarchy — Bonfire values a flat, collaborative structure…