Are you an experienced Senior Network Engineer with deep Unreal Engine networking expertise and a passion for building scalable multiplayer infrastructure?
We’re hiring a Senior Network Engineer to design and implement the server architecture and online systems for a persistent multiplayer game. This is a foundational role in early production, where your technical decisions will define scalability, reliability, and performance for years to come.
About the role...
In this role, you’ll report to the CTO and collaborate closely with gameplay engineers, backend developers, and DevOps teams. You’ll own the design of dedicated server topology, replication systems, player session management, and scalable online services that support a seamless multiplayer experience.
You’ll architect systems that handle thousands of concurrent players, optimise for global latency conditions, and ensure robust persistence and recovery in a live-service environment.
What you'll be doing:
Server architecture and networking
- Design and implement scalable server architecture for a persistent multiplayer world
- Define dedicated server topology, zone distribution, and player session management
- Build and optimise Unreal Engine networking systems including replication, relevancy, and bandwidth management
- Architect seamless world transitions and zone streaming systems
- Design matchmaking, instancing, and shard management systems
- Profile and optimise replication bandwidth, tick rates, latency compensation, and packet handling
Online services and infrastructure
- Collaborate with backend engineers to implement authentication, social systems, chat, presence, and party features
- Work with DevOps to define cloud deployment, scaling, monitoring, and failover strategies
- Implement reconnection, state recovery, and graceful degradation systems
- Design data persistence strategies for player state, inventory, progression, and world data
Collaboration and quality
- Partner with gameplay engineers to ensure server-authoritative, network-ready gameplay systems
- Define networking test plans including latency simulation and stress testing
- Contribute to architecture documentation and technical reviews
- Provide guidance on multiplayer best practices and networking design
What we're looking for:
Experience
- 6+ years of experience in game development or distributed systems engineering
- At least one shipped multiplayer title or live online service
- Strong experience with Unreal Engine networking systems
- Production experience building dedicated server workflows
Technical skills
- Deep understanding of TCP/UDP, socket programming, packet design, and latency compensation
- Strong C++ proficiency with experience writing networked gameplay and server systems
- Experience designing server architectures for multiplayer games
- Understanding of load balancing, failover, and session management
- Strong analytical and profiling skills
Nice to have:
- Experience shipping an MMO or persistent online world
- Experience with cloud infrastructure (AWS, Azure, GCP) including scaling and regional deployment
- Familiarity with large-scale database systems for game state persistence
- Experience with anti-cheat systems and multiplayer security hardening
- Exposure to spatial partitioning, interest management, or large-scale world streaming
Why join:
- Shape the networking foundation of a live-service multiplayer game
- Make high-impact architectural decisions in early production
- Remote-first culture with autonomy and technical ownership
- Opportunity to build scalable systems designed for long-term growth
If you’re a senior network engineer who designs for scale, stress, and real-world latency and wants to build multiplayer infrastructure that players never notice because it just works - we’d love to hear from you. Apply now, or email Jack Baxter - jb@skillsearch.com
Years of experience and salary levels are shown purely as a guide. We will only consider applications from candidates that can demonstrate the skills or experience required for the role.
Please be aware that while we would love to respond to every application we receive, due to high numbers we cannot guarantee this. We do however appreciate any time you invest into the application and will make sure to get in touch should anything in future more closely fit your skillset.
