WORKING AT THE PLAYFORGE
The Playforge offers competitive salaries, stock options, and great benefits. We work in sunny San Mateo, CA, very close to both the Hayward Park Caltrain station and 101. Lunch and dinner are provided daily and you get to work in a great culture full of bright and creative minds.
BENEFITS
- Medical/dental/vision benefits for all employees
- Lunch and dinner everyday
- Ping Pong tournaments
- Monthly fun company events
- Fully stocked kitchen
- A custom-made zombie avatar!
Backend Server Engineer
We're looking for a Backend Developer. We're a small team with a lot on our plate. We try to move fast, and know when to build something on our own, or leverage existing solutions. We're also pretty flexible about what you work on, and what technologies you use, so long as you can explain the benefits.
What we do
- We make games. You'll be working closely with the game teams to provide APIs that implement game features, in part or in full.
- We make games -- with data. You'll be working closely with marketing, collecting metrics regarding anything from game usage to server health, and making informed decisions based on that info.
- We are our own sys admins. You should feel comfortable managing the performance and reliability of our servers.
- We are secure. The idea of storing passwords in plaintext makes you cry a little bit. The idea of catching cheaters makes you giddy.
- We do the full stack. Markup, application code, database schema. You can do all of it, and maybe every once in a while drop into Objective-C for a small Unicode fix.
- We share. The code you write will have many customers. Some of it will be used, by you, in our future games. Some of it will be used by the game devs to improve their development process. Some of it will be used by our artists to optimize their assets. Some of it we may even open source for whoever wants it.
Still interested? Awesome
- You'll be doing development in PHP and Python (generally 80/20, adjusted for comfort)
- You'll be responsible for MySQL database schema design for any features you build
- You'll be working with a series of production Redis deployments, and should know when data belong here vs MySQL.
- You'll be given a fair amount of work freedom, and be expected to manage yourself. "With great power comes great responsibility" and all that...
- You'll be using Git and Github
- You'll be reviewing your fellow server engineers' code, and getting your own reviewed on a regular basis
- You'll grow incredibly familiar with Amazon Web Services, if you aren't already
- You'll be talking about games. A lot. And playing some too, if you like.
Marketing Manager
The Playforge is a pioneer and leading developer in the mobile social games space. We are a company differentiated from our peers through our industry leadership in design and unwavering commitment to deliver only the most compelling content. The company delivered the #1 top grossing freemium mobile game of 2010 — Zombie Farm, and recently the successful Zombie Life. We have been profitable since launch and are wholly independently funded, freeing us to embrace a culture that enables great teams to make great games.
We are looking for a Marketing Manager to be responsible for building out the user-base across all games. Responsibilities include establishing marketing strategies for pre-launch and live games and achieve them by analyzing channel economics and optimizing campaigns. This role entails significant interaction with external and internal stakeholders, including building relationships with channel partners and working with in-house product teams to define goals and develop marketing collateral. As a result, this position represents a fantastic opportunity to build knowledge and expertise in an increasingly complex mobile advertising landscape.
RESPONSIBILITIES
- Work with existing and potential advertising partners to acquire new players
- Plan and execute marketing campaign strategies
- Sourcing, evaluating and testing new user acquisition channels
- Creating campaign management process for the purpose of maximize profitability
- Track and analyze results to identify opportunities for improvement and optimization
REQUIREMENTS
- 2-5 years work in mobile, online advertising or consumer marketing environment
- Strong analytical skills, business acumen and the ability to analyze data to identify trends and opportunities
- Strategic thinker with ability to develop, articulate and implement plans
- Adaptable to managing multiple projects and clients while dealing with shifting and evolving priorities/responsibilities and last minute changes
- Bachelor’s degree required, Advanced degree preferred, Quanitative discipline preferred
Product Manager
The Playforge is a pioneer and leading developer in the mobile social games space. We are a company differentiated from our peers through our industry leadership in design and unwavering commitment to deliver only the most compelling content. The company delivered the #1 top grossing freemium mobile game of 2010 — Zombie Farm, and recently the successful Zombie Life. We have been profitable since launch and are wholly independently funded, freeing us to embrace a culture that enables great teams to make great games.
The Playforge is looking for a Product Manager. This position is a metrics driven role, requiring analytics, statistics and forecasting. Product Managers are expected to work with all aspects of game development from design to execution and to own the revenue plans and strategies for bringing the game services to market or optimizing business operations for an existing game. The ideal candidate brings measurable performance and guidance to the games or teams they are on, loves games, and is always looking for more ways to contribute.
QUALIFICATIONS
- 2+ years managing cross functional teams
- Strong analytical skills, business acumen and the ability to analyze data to identify trends and opportunities
- Plays well independently and with others
- Ability to think creatively, show empathy for consumers and has a passion for products.
- Demonstrated capacity for developing and understanding strategy
- BA, BS or MBA degree
- Loves our games
- Strong understanding and knowledge of the social game space
- Experience in mobile freemium games or in online gaming or consumer internet
Sr. Game Developer
The Playforge is a pioneer and leading developer in the mobile social games space. We are a company differentiated from our peers through our industry leadership in design and unwavering commitment to deliver only the most compelling content. The company delivered the #1 top grossing freemium mobile game of 2010 — Zombie Farm, and recently celebrated serving its 1 billionth session. We have been profitable since launch and are wholly independently funded, freeing us to embrace a culture that enables great teams to make great games.
The Playforge is actively looking for a Senior iPhone Game Developer. The ideal candidate is a highly self-motivated individual who has extensive experience in the game industry and is passionate about mobile gaming. This is a position that is intended to grow with the company and will offer the right person a lot of long term opportunities.
You’ll have the chance to gain experience in a fun, fast-paced environment, with a degree of personal ownership that's hard to find at bigger companies.
RESPONSIBILITIES
- Build iPhone and iPad games from the beginning to the end including taking advantage of the rich iPhone SDK API
- Define goals and estimates, working towards completing them, keeping the team apprised of your progress, and showing off what you’ve accomplished
- Comprehensively testing one's own code for bugs, demonstrating meticulous attention to detail
- Actively communicating with fellow developers in order to co-operate on bug fixing
- Applicants must be motivated, meet deadlines, take direction easily and learn quickly
- Make improvements to our existing iPhone games, fix bugs, and improve overall development efficiency
- Interact regularly with the systems that we use in our software development process: bug tracking (Jira), source control (Subversion), etc
REQUIREMENTS
- Strong understanding of Computer Science fundamentals (OOP, data structures, algorithms)
- Comfortable with C, C++, or Objective-C
- Proficiency with XCode and Mac OS X
- Strong analytical and problem solving skills
- Excited about working in a fast-moving, professional software development start-up. You’ll be writing code that will ship within weeks, not months or years
- Must be independent and self-motivated, taking initiative, and work effectively with others in a start-up environment.
- BS/MS in Computer Science or equivalent experience
- At least 5 years of demonstrable experience in game development (professional or hobbyist)
NICE TO HAVE
- Experience with Objective-C
- Strong understanding and knowledge of the social games space (such as Facebook)
- Experience developing on mobile platforms or relevant resource constrained platforms
- Meaningful iPhone or Mac software development experience, using Objective-C language and framework a major plus
- Experience supporting apps using multiple versions of the iPhone SDK
- Experience with interfacing iPhone/iPad applications to server side API’s (PHP, MySQL)
- A high level Zombie Farm (no cheating)
CURRENT OPPORTUNITIES
HOW TO APPLY
If you are interested in joining The Playforge team, please email your resume to: jobs@theplayforge.com
If you don't see an opening that fits your background send an email anyway! We are always looking for talented people across all functions.
Apply For A Position Now!
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