Senior Unity Developer

About Magpie

At Magpie, we envision a world where every child, no matter their background, becomes a confident reader. Our nonprofit team combines research-backed instruction, joyful game design, and innovative technology to tackle America’s reading crisis head-on — with the goal of eradicating illiteracy through a digital-first, student-centered approach.

Role Summary

We’re seeking a pragmatic, mission-driven Senior Unity Developer to join our small, high-ownership team building Magpie’s next generation of learning games. You’ll wear many hats, work across boundaries, and lead two games from inception through alpha-ready delivery—shipping clear, consistent milestones along the way.

In this role, you’ll design and deliver the core gameplay systems that power joyful, effective reading experiences for students. You’ll work cross-functionally with Product, Learning Design, and Engineering to turn learning specifications into engaging gameplay, and you’ll own quality and performance—especially for web delivery (Chromebook-friendly).

You’re drawn to missions that matter. You think deeply about the systems behind learning, not just the visuals. You balance pragmatism with curiosity and build for the long term. The ideal candidate pairs strong technical execution with deep empathy for users, thrives in a collaborative startup environment, and is motivated by the opportunity to make reading joyful and accessible for all.

What You’ll Do:

• Design and build core gameplay architecture that is reliable, testable, and scalable (game states, core loop, progression, input, UI flow).
• Build and iterate on novel game components and reusable systems (animation/state machines, interaction systems, dialogue/tutorial systems, level/puzzle frameworks).
• Collaborate closely with product managers, learning designers, and fellow engineers to create new gameplay experiences and improve existing ones.
• Integrate with backend / live game services for personalization and persistence (APIs, data flows, offline/online resilience).
• Approach the games as products: understand learner and educator needs, identify friction, and take ownership of outcomes with metrics-informed decision making.
• Take ownership across all phases of development, from design to production, and monitor performance in live environments (especially WebGL).
• Implement a pragmatic automated testing strategy: unit tests + integration tests tied to game states, services, and core systems.
• Drive playtesting loops: instrument builds for fast feedback, triage issues, ship fixes, and improve stability.
• Write clean, efficient, and well-documented code following best practices.
• Ensure application performance, quality, and responsiveness across platforms (Chromebook-friendly, web constraints).
• Participate in code reviews, testing, and debugging to maintain high-quality deliverables.
• Mentor other engineers and contribute to their growth.
• Contribute to architectural decisions and help define technical standards and best practices.
• Stay up to date with emerging technologies and suggest improvements to enhance development processes.

A strong candidate will possess:

✅ 5+ years of professional Unity development experience (shipping products). 

✅ Demonstrated ability to own a game/system end-to-end: architecture → implementation → testing → bugfixing → release. 

✅ Strong experience with state management, core loop implementation, and building reusable components. 

✅ Production experience integrating client-side experiences with server-side services (APIs, persistence, personalization). 

✅ Solid testing discipline (unit + integration), and comfort setting up testing patterns for a game codebase. 

✅ Strong debugging skills and a bias toward shipping stable builds. 

✅ Experience working with designers/product partners in an iterative development loop. 

✅ Strong collaboration and communication skills in a small, cross-functional environment.

Bonus points

• WebGL and web performance optimization experience (Chromebook-friendly)
• Experience with analytics/instrumentation for playtesting and quality
• Experience building educational games or child-friendly experiences

Tech Stack

• Game Client: Unity (C#)
• Web Delivery: WebGL (performance optimization, profiling, memory constraints)
• Services & Integrations: APIs for personalization + persistence (backend partners)
• Tooling: GitHub, CI, testing frameworks, analytics/telemetry (as applicable)

Within your first 30 days, you will:

• Demonstrate a clear understanding of Magpie’s mission, OKRs, and learner-focused product strategy by mapping how the learning games contribute to joyful practice, measurable progress, and equitable access for students and educators.
• Develop a comprehensive understanding of the current game and platform landscape by reviewing codebase architecture, game state patterns, asset pipelines, build/deploy workflows, and integration points with game services—documenting key insights to inform development.
• Build effective cross-functional relationships with Product, Learning Design, Engineering, and QA stakeholders, and establish clear channels for collaboration on game design, implementation, and quality.
• Align on the monthly milestone scope and delivery plan (inception + core development): technical design for initial core logic, core loop + game states, initial engine/build requirements, and early implementation of novel game components—so execution is unblocked for the first monthly ship.
• Learn Magpie’s gameplay tooling ecosystem (testing patterns, instrumentation, performance profiling) and demonstrate foundational proficiency through guided walkthroughs and hands-on exploration.
• Engage in shadowing and pairing sessions to observe playtesting, bug triage, and release processes, identifying areas where architecture or workflow improvements can strengthen reliability and velocity.

By day 60, you’re:

• Shipping meaningful progress toward the monthly milestone scope (release readiness): integrating server-side game services (personalization + persistence), completing initial unit test coverage, and running initial playtesting + bug fixing to improve stability.
• Strengthening functional relationships by consistently engaging with partners across disciplines, demonstrating responsiveness, clarity, and a collaborative approach to solving gameplay, performance, and reliability challenges.
• Delivering a concise findings summary synthesizing observations from the first 30–60 days, highlighting risks (performance, testing gaps, architecture debt), dependencies, and the highest-leverage improvements to support shipping.
• Completing one low-risk, well-scoped improvement—such as enhancing a core state machine pattern, adding a key integration test, or improving a performance hotspot—to demonstrate early ownership while prioritizing context gathering.

By day 90, you will:

• Leading a lightweight technical design review for a major game system (e.g., state management, progression, input/UI flow, content pipeline), articulating clear tradeoffs and a plan for maintainable implementation.
• Shipping the monthly milestone scope (alpha-ready for the first game): completed unit test coverage plus initial end-to-end integration test coverage, QA bug fixing, and delivery of pre-release enhancements with release confidence.
• Assuming clear ownership of one or more core domains (e.g., game state architecture, testing strategy, WebGL performance), providing reliable guidance and steadily improving these systems.
• Demonstrating increasing strategic impact by balancing quality with velocity, communicating clearly with stakeholders, and serving as a trusted partner in delivering two games on an aggressive timeline.
• Improving observability and performance by tuning instrumentation, profiling workflows, or build diagnostics to support faster iteration and higher stability in production.

What Success Looks Like

• Delivers two learning games to alpha-ready on time, with clear monthly milestones shipped and validated through playtesting.
• Maintains a high-quality codebase with strong unit and integration test coverage for core game systems, reducing regressions and improving release confidence.
• Improves WebGL performance and reliability (Chromebook-friendly), resulting in smoother gameplay and fewer production issues for students and educators.
• Enables cross-functional collaboration by translating learning specifications into concrete, implementable gameplay systems—without sacrificing maintainability or long-term extensibility.

Benefits

What You'll Receive:

• Salary range of $150,000-$155,000 per annum
• Competitive medical, dental, vision benefits
• Opportunity to work remotely for a mission-driven company full of change-makers
• Enjoy the freedom of flexible time off to balance work and personal life, ensuring you stay refreshed and productive.
• 401k with 4% guaranteed match
• Work environment that values balance and harmony with a deep commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion
• Opportunity to travel and meet your team members in-person 2x per year

Join Us

At Magpie, your work will directly unlock the great reader in every child. If you’re ready to lead with purpose, build with urgency, and partner with a mission-driven team to solve one of America’s biggest educational challenges — we want to hear from you.