Lead Generalist Programmer

North America

Side is a global game development partner helping studios bring games to life across co‑development, art, audio, QA, player support, and more. We work alongside developers and publishers to solve production challenges at every stage, from active development through live operations.

Lead Generalist Programmer

We’re looking for a Lead Generalist Programmer to help drive technical delivery across a range of game development engagements. This role is for a senior engineer who is equally comfortable leading people, collaborating with clients, and getting hands‑on in code. You should bring strong technical depth in both Unity and Unreal, experience guiding teams through production, and the judgment to move between gameplay systems, tools, optimization, and platform‑specific problem solving as projects demand.

• Lead and mentor engineers across active co‑development and game development projects
• Act as a senior technical partner to production, design, art, and client stakeholders
• Contribute hands‑on to implementation in Unity and Unreal, depending on project needs
• Architect and review systems across gameplay, tools, UI, integration, optimization, and platform support
• Establish engineering best practices for code quality, performance, maintainability, and delivery
• Help scope work, identify technical risk early, and provide realistic production recommendations
• Support hiring, onboarding, and growth of engineering talent within the team
• Communicate technical tradeoffs clearly to both technical and non‑technical audiences
• Partner with internal leadership and external clients to align technical execution with project goals

What we’re looking for

• 5+ years of professional game programming experience
• Experience leading or mentoring engineers in a production environment
• Strong hands‑on development experience in both Unity and Unreal Engine
• Strong coding skills in C# and C++
• Experience shipping games or major features on at least one of the following: PC, console, or mobile
• Deep understanding of game architecture, pipelines, debugging, profiling, and optimization
• Ability to work across multiple gameplay‑adjacent domains such as gameplay systems, UI, animation systems, tooling, or integration
• Strong understanding of technical risk, production tradeoffs, and scalable engineering practices
• Excellent communication skills with the ability to work directly with clients, partners, and cross‑functional teams

• Experience in a co‑development, outsourcing, or service‑based studio environment
• Experience with console development and certification constraints
• Familiarity with backend or online systems integration
• Experience building internal tools and workflows for designers, artists, or production teams
• Exposure to AWS, CI/CD pipelines, or live‑service workflows
• Experience helping scope projects, write technical proposals, or support business development conversations

This will be a contract role to start with the intent to convert to perm.