Jackbox Games is best known for its rapidly expanding catalog of critically acclaimed party games including Quiplash, Drawful, Fibbage, You Don’t Know Jack and The Jackbox Party Packs (1-7).

We make party games where players interact with a game being displayed on a big screen using their phones or tablets as controllers. While our games are often played at home in small groups of 2-8 people, we also support large-scale games at events or via Twitch streaming where thousands of users can connect and interact.

We’re a small group (around 45 people) of very talented, funny, and creative individuals looking for a Gameplay Software Engineer to join our Chicago-based team.

Check out our website for more info about who we are and what we make. jackboxgames.com.

What’s the Job?

Gameplay engineers will work closely with art, audio, design, engineering, and editorial leads on individual games to implement features, fix bugs, incorporate art and media assets into the production pipeline, and improve our technical infrastructure. It is our goal for gameplay engineers to learn our systems and take on more responsibility until they have the skills to be an engineering lead on a game.

Responsibilities:

• Implement gameplay features as designed by the engineering lead and the rest of the design team.
• Find and resolve defects and other issues as they come up during development.
• Participate in game design meetings and pre-production to ensure the technical success of a game
• Participate in prototyping and experimentation as we explore and develop new product ideas
• Participate in code reviews
• Work with QA to find and fix issues as they come up during production and testing

Ideal Candidates…

• Have developed a video game in some capacity -- either professionally, as a hobby, a game jam, or as part of a student project.
• Are a capable programmer and very comfortable in at least one mainstream programming language.
• Show competence in core software engineering concepts: data structures, design patterns, algorithms, etc.
• Write clean, elegant code that can be easily understood by fellow software engineers
• Are professional, responsible, dedicated, friendly, flexible, patient and enthusiastic.

And it would be nice if you also have…

• An understanding of game mechanics and intuition for what makes a game successful
• Great party game ideas

We only hire clever, kind and creative people who are willing to work hard. Jackbox Games is a group effort and you must work collaboratively. Everyone here shares a commitment to excellence and a desire to work in a comfortable, friendly atmosphere.

Jackbox Games is committed to providing employment opportunities without regard to race, color, religion, creed, sex, pregnancy, sexual orientation, gender identity, genetic information, national origin, ancestry, age, veteran status, or disability.

F.A.Q.

• I'm not sure if I'm qualified. Should I apply?
  We would much rather read your application than miss out on a great candidate, so please err on the side of applying. If you are passionate about games and are a good programmer, give it a shot! Worse thing that happens is you don't get the job, but we promise you're not wasting our time.
• What if I’m too qualified and have extensive work experience?
  You should still apply. We are looking for the best candidates and we will adjust responsibilities (and compensation) to match your experience.
• Do I need to live in or relocate to the Chicago area for this position?
  Short answer: yes. Long answer: We are all working remotely due to COVID-19 at the moment, so there’s not a rush, but the expectation is that eventually you will work out of our Chicago office.

Are there any perks?

• Competitive pay and benefits. 401(k) with matching. And we pay 100% of the cost of premiums for medical, dental, vision, disability and life insurance for our employees. We also cover a really nice chunk of the cost of premiums for partner/dependent medical, dental and vision insurance. Paid parental leave.
• Casual dress and a flexible schedule. Come in a sweatshirt, jeans, or whatever (at least when we’re back to working in the office. We are all remote at the moment.)
• Creative work environment. We are lucky to work in a place that is full of talented and innovative folks. Although most hours the place is pretty quiet (we’re a focused bunch), this is punctuated with hilarious outbursts and general merriment, which makes a nice way to spend the day.
• Easy transportation. We’re very close to the “L” and the Halsted (#8) bus (right by the new Apple Store and Mega Whole Foods if that’s your kind of thing), and we have transit and parking FSA that allows you to dedicate pre-tax dollars to public transportation and parking expenses.
• Free food. Every week, we stock our kitchen with snacks.

Interested?

Great, we look forward to reading your application. Make sure you include:

• Your resume.
• A cover letter. We weigh cover letters heavily, so you can (and should) write more, but we won’t evaluate applicants that don’t answer these two questions:
  • Why are you interested in working at Jackbox Games?
  • What is your favorite game and why?
• A completed take-home assessment. You will be sent an email with instructions to complete a take-home assessment after you apply. Your application will not be considered until the assessment is uploaded. The assessment should take roughly 30-60 minutes to complete and contains some open-ended short answer questions as well as a short coding exercise. We ask that you try to complete the assessment within 48 hours.

We know it is a time commitment to prepare an application and we respect that effort by thoughtfully reviewing every complete application and responding one way or the other. But that kind of thoughtful review means that it sometimes takes us a while to get back to applicants, so please be patient with us and no phone calls.

Thanks for your interest in Jackbox Games!