Staff Software Engineer, Core Engine

The opportunity
We're looking for a Staff Engineer to join the Runtime team within the Core Engine group here at Unity. You'll be responsible for designing, implementing, and maintaining the low-level systems that form the backbone of the Unity runtime. You'll work across subsystems including transforms, the player loop, the job system, serialization, and support higher level features like physics and netcode. Your work will directly impact the performance, stability, and capabilities available to millions of developers worldwide.

This is a highly technical individual contributor role with significant influence over architectural decisions and engineering practices. You'll collaborate closely with teams across rendering, physics, animation, scripting, and platform engineering to ensure the core engine meets the evolving needs of real-time 3D content creation.

This role requires deep expertise in C++ and systems programming, a track record of technical leadership, and the ability to mentor engineers while driving critical initiatives that shape how creators build with Unity.

What you'll be doing

• Design and implement core runtime systems with a focus on performance, memory efficiency, and cross-platform compatibility
• Lead technical initiatives spanning multiple teams, driving alignment on architecture and implementation approaches
• Profile, analyze, and optimize engine performance across diverse hardware targets including consoles, mobile devices, desktop, and emerging platforms
• Mentor and support engineers across the organization, raising the bar for code quality and engineering rigor
• Contribute to technical strategy and roadmap planning for the core engine
• Write clear technical documentation and participate in design reviews
• Debug complex, system-level issues that span multiple subsystems
• Evaluate and integrate new platform capabilities and hardware features

What we're looking for

• Extensive experience in systems programming, with deep expertise in C++
• Proven experience building and shipping low-level engine or runtime systems at scale
• Strong understanding of computer architecture, memory hierarchies, cache behavior, and CPU/GPU interaction
• Experience with multithreaded programming
• Familiarity with multiple platforms (Windows, macOS, Linux, consoles, mobile) and their toolchains
• Track record of leading cross-team technical initiatives and influencing engineering direction
• Excellent debugging and profiling skills
• Strong written and verbal communication skills

You might also have

• Experience with game engine development (Unity, Unreal, proprietary engines)
• Experience with C# and the managed runtime
• Familiarity with SIMD programming
• Experience with Burst, LLVM, or other compiler technologies
• Contributions to open-source projects or published technical writing

Additional information

• Relocation support is not available for this position

Benefits
At Unity, we want our team members to thrive. We offer a wide range of benefits designed to support well-being and work-life balance.

Please note: Benefits eligibility, specific offerings, and coverage vary based on the country and employment status.

While specific benefits vary, here are some of the ways we strive to take care of our eligible team members globally: Comprehensive health, life, and disability insurance | Commute subsidy | Employee stock ownership | Competitive retirement/pension plans | Generous vacation and personal days | Support for new parents through leave and family-care programs | Office food snacks | Mental Health and Wellbeing programs and support | Employee Resource Groups | Global Employee Assistance Program | Training and development programs | Volunteering and donation matching program

Life at Unity

Unity [NYSE: U] is the world’s leading game engine, powering play for more than 3 billion consumers each month. The top mobile games in the world, the most played PC indie titles, the most innovative console games, and virtually all of the top XR and Web Games are developed, deployed, and grown in Unity. Unity also enables teams across industries like automotive, manufacturing, and healthcare to design, simulate, and collaborate in 3D — closing the gap between ideas and reality. For more information, please visit www.unity.com.

Unity is a proud equal opportunity employer. We are committed to fostering an inclusive, innovative environment and celebrate our employees across age, race, color, ancestry, national origin, religion, disability, sex, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, or any other protected status in accordance with applicable law. Our differences are strengths that enable us to support the growing and evolving needs of our customers, partners, and collaborators. If you have a disability that means there are preparations or accommodations we can make to help ensure you have a comfortable and positive interview experience, please fill out this form to let us know.

This position requires the incumbent to have a sufficient knowledge of English to have professional verbal and written exchanges in this language since the performance of the duties related to this position requires frequent and regular communication with colleagues and partners located worldwide and whose common language is English.

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