Software Engineer

Job Description

Overview

Overview

Rare is an Xbox Game Studio creating the kind of games the world doesn’t have. Our values – explorers, evolving, together – are fundamental to the games we make and how we make them. Rare offers rewarding and fulfilling careers for exceptional people, supporting you to learn and grow. Our studio is a welcoming campus in the heart of the Midlands, where the majority of our team work in a flexible hybrid work pattern.

Responsibilities

Role Purpose

Engineers in the team will have opportunities to work across varied aspects of Rare’s infrastructure that empowers game teams, artists, musicians, and others to achieve more in their work. You will create and improve bespoke tools, and work on continuous integration and deployment systems - building and packaging games for Xbox and PC, working on platforms such as Xbox Live, PlayFab, Azure services and cloud infrastructure, and more.

Leveraging our Azure infrastructure, you will write microservice applications in C# to run in Azure and learn and write game code in C++ that will utilise these services. You will be deploying the services into Azure, monitoring & updating them as needed, and observing live how your code has an impact on players and their experience! Services that we engineer range from storing player inventory, progress and achievements between game sessions to multiplayer matchmaking.

Key Accountabilities

• Design, implement, and iterate on tools in conjunction with other Engineers, Designers, Artists and Testers.
• Identify and surface risks in the areas that are being worked on.
• Research and develop software systems to support the development of our products in conjunction with other Engineers.
• Solve problems through the application of sound engineering practice.
• Continuously work to minimise technical debt and maintenance hazards.
• Deploy and run services in an Azure environment.

Qualifications

Required Skills and Experience

• Experience with programming.
• Demonstrable experience of its practical application
• Experience with a managed, object-oriented language (e.g., C#, Java). Preferably using .NET framework.

Desirable Experience

• C or C++.
• A scripting language (e.g., Python, Perl, PowerShell).
• Automated Testing (e.g., NUnit).
• Source Control (git, Perforce, etc.)
• Understanding security over the internet (e.g., https, certificates, PKI)
• Working within a team.
• Experience with commercial game engines like Unreal Engine, Unity or Godot.
• Web service development (e.g., Azure Services, ASP.NET, NodeJS)
• Cloud deployment (e.g., Azure, AWS, GCP).
• CI/CD (e.g., TeamCity, Octopus, Jenkins, GitHub Actions).
• Contribution to an open-source community.
• Game related engineering (e.g., rendering with DirectX/OpenGL, 3D modelling).

Microsoft is an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to age, ancestry, color, family or medical care leave, gender identity or expression, genetic information, marital status, medical condition, national origin, physical or mental disability, political affiliation, protected veteran status, race, religion, sex (including pregnancy), sexual orientation, or any other characteristic protected by applicable laws, regulations and ordinances. If you need assistance and/or a reasonable accommodation due to a disability during the application or the recruiting process, please send a request via the Accommodation request form.

Benefits/perks listed below may vary depending on the nature of your employment with Microsoft and the country where you work.