QA & Playtest Engineer

Overview

Pickford is building the next generation of storytelling. We’re building expressive interactive narratives, while preserving storytelling’s historical foundation as a tight loop between audience and creator. Our focus story quality and audience engagement means we get to work with truly exceptional creators. Our AI expertise has attracted world-class researchers. Together we’re defining a new category of media. All of this comes together in a UGC platform where creators can build, share, and collaborate on living stories which can only be powered by AI.

Position Overview: We’re looking for a contract QA engineer who understands that many of the hardest bugs don’t show up in automation.

In this role, you’ll focus on hands-on, experiential testing of a real-time interactive product, running scenarios repeatedly, probing edge cases, and catching qualitative issues that only emerge during extended or realistic use. You’ll work closely with engineers, product, and creative to help define what “working correctly” means from a user’s point of view.

This is a great fit for someone who enjoys thoughtfully breaking systems, cares about user experience, and can translate messy behavior into clear, actionable bug reports.

Estimated weekly commitment is 2-3 days, initially, with a strong path toward full-time employment.

Rates vary between $35-40/hr depending on experience.

• Manually test live interactive experiences, focusing on core user flows, session continuity, and state consistency
• Identify qualitative issues related to pacing, responsiveness, clarity, and overall experience, not just crashes
• Write clear, concise bug reports with reliable repro steps and expected vs actual behavior
• Help define and protect a small set of critical “must-not-break” flows
• Collaborate with engineers to verify fixes and prevent regressions
• Contribute to lightweight regression testing and smoke test plans
• Assist with or suggest areas for basic automation or tooling improvements

• 3 years of QA or play testing experience testing interactive, or real-time systems
• Strong manual testing instincts and attention to experiential detail
• Ability to think like a user while debugging like an engineer
• Comfortable running repetitive test passes without losing rigor
• Clear written communication and structured bug reporting
• Experience working closely with small engineering teams
• Able to work independently and manage your own testing priorities

• Experience testing games, simulations, or real-time applications
• Familiarity with Unity, Unreal, or other game engines
• Exposure to basic test automation tools or CI pipelines
• Experience testing products in open beta or live environments

• The space to work on truly crazy projects that will shape the future of media
• The opportunity to closely collaborate with with amazing multidisciplinary talent – Hollywood creatives, world-class designers, superstar engineers, and incredible AI researchers
• Unique professional growth opportunities built directly into our development process