Lead Gameplay Developer in Bristol

Location: Remote-first

Type: Full-time

Start: ASAP

About Couch Heroes

At Couch Heroes, we are exploring new ground for the MMO genre. In a world where fantasy and ancient technology intertwine, players explore shattered realms, grapple across verticality, solve puzzles, and push back corruption, with progression driven by player expression and discovery. We envision bridging generations of gamers, creating a space where both coexist and journey together. We are developing in Unreal Engine, in early production, with a team spanning multiple countries. We are remote-first, based in the UK, and scaling to support a multi-year live-service roadmap. We value autonomy, curiosity, and collaborative ownership, and we are looking for creators who want to help build something from the ground up.

About the Job

The systems that define how players interact with the world, each other, and the game's core mechanics are built by gameplay engineers. We need a Lead Gameplay Developer who can own the technical implementation of our core gameplay systems and build the engineering team that delivers them.

You will report to the CTO and manage a growing team of gameplay engineers. You will make technical design decisions, stay hands-on with implementation, and represent the gameplay engineering discipline across the studio in production planning, design reviews, and resourcing decisions.

We are in early production. The studio has been running for three years, but core gameplay systems including combat, traversal, abilities, progression, and multiplayer interaction are still being architected and prototyped. You will be making foundational technical decisions that define how the game feels, scales, and evolves over years of live service.

Your Role

• People Leadership and Team Development
  • Manage a growing team of gameplay engineers as the team scales through production: set priorities, assign work, balance workload, and run regular 1:1s focused on progress, career development, and honest feedback.
  • Lead performance reviews and goal setting aligned to production milestones and individual development plans. Identify skill gaps and address them through coaching, stretch assignments, or training.
  • Represent the gameplay engineering discipline in cross-discipline leads meetings, production planning, and resourcing conversations. Advocate for team needs and capacity.
  • Foster a team culture of technical rigour, clean code practices, and collaborative problem solving.
  • Support hiring as the team grows: contribute to job descriptions, design technical assessments, and participate in interview loops.
• Gameplay Systems and Implementation
  • Own the technical design and implementation of core gameplay systems in Unreal Engine 5, including combat, traversal, abilities, player interaction, and progression mechanics.
  • Architect gameplay systems for a persistent MMO context: server-authoritative logic, client prediction, ability replication, and state synchronisation across distributed server infrastructure.
  • Collaborate closely with game design and level design to translate design intent into robust, tuneable, and extensible gameplay code. Build systems that designers can iterate on without requiring engineering support for every change.
  • Stay hands-on with C++ and Blueprint implementation. Build, profile, and iterate alongside your engineers, establishing technical quality benchmarks and code architecture patterns.
  • Work with animation, VFX, and audio teams to integrate gameplay systems with presentation layers: ability visuals, hit feedback, audio cues, and UI responses.
• Technical Architecture and Performance
  • Define coding standards, architecture patterns, and review processes for gameplay code. Ensure the codebase remains maintainable and extensible as the team and feature set grow.
  • Profile and optimise gameplay systems for MMO-scale performance: tick budgets, replication bandwidth, ability processing in dense combat scenarios, and memory management.
  • Collaborate with online services and network engineering to ensure gameplay systems work reliably under real-world latency and server load conditions.
  • Work with production to manage scope, schedules, and task breakdowns for gameplay engineering work. Contribute to milestone planning, sprint scoping, and capacity forecasting.
  • Use playtesting observations and telemetry data to identify technical issues with gameplay feel, responsiveness, and fairness.

Must-Haves

• Proven experience in game development, with at least one shipped title in a gameplay engineering or gameplay lead role.
• Proven experience of direct people management: running 1:1s, setting goals, conducting performance reviews, and developing team members.
• Strong C++ proficiency with production experience in Unreal Engine, including Gameplay Ability System, replication, and Blueprint integration.
• Experience building gameplay systems for multiplayer or online games, with a working understanding of server authority, client prediction, and state replication.
• Demonstrated ability to translate game design concepts into well-architected, extensible, and performant code.
• Strong communication and documentation skills, with proven experience collaborating across disciplines (design, art, animation, audio, network) to ship integrated gameplay features.

Nice-to-Haves

• Experience shipping at least one MMO or persistent online world from production through live service.
• Experience with Unreal Engine's Gameplay Ability System (GAS) at scale, including custom ability tasks, gameplay effects, and attribute sets.
• Familiarity with AI systems for NPC behaviour, encounter scripting, or enemy design.
• Experience with data-driven design approaches where designers author gameplay content through configuration rather than code changes.
• Exposure to anti-cheat considerations and exploit mitigation in competitive or economy-driven multiplayer games.

About You

You lead by investing in people. You find genuine satisfaction in watching your team grow and you actively develop the engineers around you.

You care about how systems feel to the player, not just whether they function correctly. Frame data, input responsiveness, and gameplay feel matter to you.

You are comfortable working through ambiguity. Early production means not everything is defined yet, and you see that as an opportunity to shape the right technical approach.

You balance technical elegance with delivery pragmatism. You know when to architect for the future and when to prototype quickly to validate design.

You work autonomously in a remote environment, proactively keeping your team aligned and your stakeholders informed.

We are committed to making our hiring process accessible. If you require reasonable adjustments at any stage, please let us know.

Couch Heroes is an equal opportunities employer. We celebrate diversity and are committed to creating an inclusive environment for all employees. We welcome applications from all backgrounds and do not discriminate on the basis of age, disability, gender identity or expression, marriage or civil partnership, pregnancy or maternity, race, religion or belief, sex, sexual orientation, or any other protected characteristic.

We process your personal data as part of the recruitment process. Couch Heroes and Skillsearch both act as data controllers in relation to your application. For details on how your information is collected, used, stored, and your rights under UK GDPR, please review the relevant Privacy Policies.