Big Ant Studios

Join Big Ant Studios as a Generalist Programmer and be part of making some of console and mobiles’ biggest sports titles from our centrally located Melbourne studio. You will be working on cutting-edge engine technology, building user interfaces that complement the gameplay visuals and experience. You will work within a small, collaborative team where you will have the opportunity to help shape our future titles.

The job:

Designing and implementing new systems, while improving existing systems in C++

Self-managing programming task schedule updates and coordinating with the production team

Bug fixing and maintaining the existing Big Ant Engine code base

Analysing and fixing common problems in a game engine such as load times, memory usage, and performance problems

You:

Bachelor's degree in software engineering, computer science, or equivalent

Very good understanding of C++

Experience in software programming, ideally in the video game industry or any other relevant experience.

Basic knowledge of engine or middleware and associated pipeline

Passionate about playing and making games

Basic knowledge of debugging tools

Familiar with basic speed and memory considerations

Familiar with optimisation principles

Ability to anticipate and resolve problems

Attention to detail

Flexibility in organising work

Good interpersonal and communication skills

Ability to work as part of a team

Ability to adapt to change

Ability to quickly learn to use new tools

Work well with designers and artists to implement the vision of the game

Strong verbal and written communication skills

Bonus points:

Experience on the current generation of consoles (PS4, Xbox One)

Experience with scripting languages (Lua, Python)

Good debugging skills

The company:

Big Ant Studios is one of the oldest and largest game developers in Australia. Based in City Road, Southbank, we develop premium character action, racing, and sports content for multiple platforms. 

Benefits:

Big Ant offers a central location, an experienced team and perks include daily lunches, voluntary social events, and professional development support.
 

Big Ant encourages applications and enquiries from women and other underrepresented developers.

Join Big Ant Studios as an Animator and be part of making some of console and mobiles’ biggest sports titles from our centrally located Melbourne studio. Working as part of a small collaborative team, your input will impact the design of current and future titles whilst building your skills.

The Job:

• Work with art and code team members to improve character visuals, such as mesh deformation, facial animation, cloth and hair dynamics.

• Edit and clean motion capture data using Motion Builder

• Design animation systems with gameplay team members

• Coordinate and direct motion capture shoots

You:

• Strong animation skills, especially with body mechanics

• Strong technical skills in Motion Builder and Maya

• Good working knowledge of cloth and hair dynamics, ideally in video-games

• Self-driven

• Creative problem solver

• Keen eye for detail and composition

• Team player

Bonus points:

• Working knowledge of Vicon Blade and motion capture

• Experience with scripting languages (Mel, Python, Lua)

• Solid understanding of classic animation fundamentals.

The company:

Big Ant Studios is one of the oldest and largest game developers in Australia. Based in City Road, Southbank, we develop premium character action, racing, and sports content for multiple platforms.

Benefits:

Big Ant offers a central location, an experienced team and perks include daily lunches, voluntary social events, and professional development support.

Big Ant encourages applications and enquiries from women and other underrepresented developers.

Please note you will need to have working rights in Australia. At this stage we cannot sponsor a working visa.

Join Big Ant Studios as a UI Artist and be part of making some of console and mobiles’ biggest sports titles from our centrally located Melbourne studio (once we’re back in the office). Your input will impact the design of current and future titles. As a UI Artist you will work as part of our UI/UX team along with our Producers, Game Designers and the Art Director.

 You will be responsible for:

Creating mock-ups based on the game design requirements.
Creating assets in Illustrator and Photoshop based on the style guide.
Implementing the UI assets into our in-house engine and making sure they are working as intended on all required platforms.
Your skills:

Minimum 3 years full time experience at a game studio.
Hands-on experience of Unreal, Unity or similar game engine.
Knowledge of Adobe Creative Suite (Photoshop and Illustrator are a must).
Confident understanding of typography and colour theory.
The ability to work effectively as part of a team.
 Bonus Points:

Traditional art background
Coding experience
3D art skills
The company:

Big Ant Studios is one of the oldest and largest game developers in Australia.  Based in City Road, Southbank, we develop premium character action, racing, and sports content for multiple platforms.

Benefits:

Big Ant offers a central Melbourne location, an experienced team and perks including daily lunches, voluntary social events, and professional development.

Big Ant encourages applications and enquiries from women and other underrepresented developers.

Please note you will need to have working rights in Australia. At this stage we cannot sponsor a working visa.

Big Ant is currently seeking a full-time Engine Programmer. We are looking for a highly talented and motivated person to work on our Sports titles at our Melbourne studio.

You will be working on cutting-edge engine technology that complement the game visuals and experience. You will work within a small collaboration-oriented team where you will have the opportunity to help shape our future titles.

About the role
    • Design and implement new systems, while improving existing systems in C++ and Lua
    • Self-manage programming task schedule updates and coordination with production teams
    • Bug fixing and maintenance of the existing Big Ant Engine
    • Identifying, analyzing and correcting issues in a multi-threaded game engine, such as load times, memory usage and CPU/GPU performance
    • Delivering robust, performant and maintainable program code
    • Working in multi-disciplinary teams and providing artists with the art team tools to improve the visual experience

About you
    • You’ve been programming software and relying on C++ for at least five years
    • You’ve got great debugging techniques and work well with source control systems as well as other people.

Bonus Round
    • You have a degree or above in Computer Science
    • You’ve  knowledge of PBR, HDR, sRGB, Tone mapping, Colour grading, Image processing
    • Working knowledge of DirectX 11/12 graphics API
    • Experience on the current generation of game consoles (PS4, Xbox One)
    • You can write and debug efficient vertex, pixel and compute shaders in HLSL, GLSL or equivalent
    • Experience with scripting languages (Lua, Python)

The company:
    • Big Ant Studios is one of the oldest and largest game developers in Australia. Based in City Road, Southbank, we develop premium character action, racing, and sports content for multiple platforms.

Benefits:
    • Big Ant offers a central location, an experienced team and perks include daily lunches, voluntary social events, and professional development support.

Big Ant encourages applications and enquiries from women and other underrepresented developers.

Big Ant is currently seeking a full-time Network Programmer. We are looking for a highly talented and motivated person to work on our console Sports titles at our Melbourne studio.

You will be working on cutting-edge engine technology, working within a small collaboration-oriented team where you will have the opportunity to shape our future titles. The Network Programmer autonomously develops network and server related functions assigned by the Lead Programmer. They design and implement the network interface or tools to help game communicate with each other and with the server.

RESPONSIBILITIES:
    • Develop library for game features that require network communication.
    • Develop server apis and features for an online multi-player game.
    • Create tools to stress test servers in a lab environment.
    • Create scripts/tools for development pipeline.
    • Work closely with gameplay programmers to integrate network library into the game
    • Debug problems related to network library and multi-thread programming
    • Work closely with game designers to clarify network/server design requirements.
    • Able to break a large task down into a more manageable group of smaller tasks, plan and schedule the smaller tasks.
    • Capable to inform management ahead of time when tasks are falling behind schedule, and propose solutions.
    • Help Junior Programmers solve technical issues on their tasks.
    • Communicate the progress of your work to your peers, customers, and leads.
    • Correct defects discovered by QC or your customers in a timely fashion.
    • Provide self-assessment on how to improve their own performance.
    • Mentor junior programmers on how to improve their performance.

SKILLS and KNOWLEDGE
    • Must be proficient in C++, knowledge of multi-threaded programming
    • Knowledge of various network protocols such TCP, UDP, HTTP.
    • Have a good understanding of mathematics.
    • Knowledge of software development using Scrum and proper Scrum practices.
    • Ability to work independently or as a team player.
    • 2+ years of programming experience.

PREFERRED SKILLS:
    • Knowledge of scripting languages (Lua) is a plus
    • Knowledge of relational databases a plus.

The company:
Big Ant Studios is one of the oldest and largest game developers in Australia.  Based in City Road, Southbank, we develop premium character action, racing, and sports content for multiple platforms.

Benefits:
Big Ant offers a central location, an experienced team and perks include daily lunches, voluntary social events, and professional development support.

Big Ant encourages applications and enquiries from women and other underrepresented developers.

Join Big Ant Studios as a User Interface Programmer and be part of making some of console and mobiles’ biggest sports titles from our centrally located Melbourne studio.  

You will be working on cutting-edge engine technology, building user interfaces that complement the gameplay visuals and experience. You will work within a small, collaborative team where you will have the opportunity to shape the UI of our future titles.

The job:
    • Working with the lead engineer to develop UI features and systems
    • Collaborating with the UI designers to develop the user experience
    • Creating and maintaining technical design documents
    • Self-managing programming task schedule updates and coordinating with the production team
    • Reviewing user interface and optimising performance and resource utilisation
    • Consulting with UI designers to ensure best performance and user experience

You:
    • Shipped at least 1  game as UI engineer for PS4, PS3, Xbox One, 360, PC, or MacOS or next/now gen.
    • Proficiency in C++
    • Bachelor's degree in software engineering, computer science, or equivalent
    • Works well with designers and artists to implement the vision of the game
    • Solid verbal and written communication skills
    • Strong knowledge of performance/memory constraints of building game UI required
    • Experience with scripting languages (Lua, Python)
    • Good debugging skills

Bonus points:
    • 2+ years programming experience
    • Experience on the last or current consoles (Playstation, Xbox)
    • Experience with NoesisGUI
    • Experience with other UI development tools such as like QT
    • Experience with design patterns (MVC/MVVM)
    • Working knowledge of C#

The company:
Big Ant Studios is one of the oldest and largest game developers in Australia.  Based in City Road, Southbank, we develop premium character action, racing, and sports content for multiple platforms.

Benefits:
While currently Work from Home, when we’re back on site Big Ant offers a central location, an experienced team and perks include daily lunches, Friday pizzas,  social events and professional development support.

Big Ant encourages applications and enquiries from women and other underrepresented developers.