Principal Physics Programmer, C++ – Modeling & Simulation

This is a fully remote position, open to applicants in United States.

📋 Description

• Design and implement the fundamental C++ runtime for a large-scale, interactive wargaming platform.

• Take ownership of the architecture, performance, and long-term viability of a significant engine codebase.

• Create and refine an entity-component-system architecture to accommodate numerous diverse simulation entities.

• Develop data-oriented component storage, manage entity lifecycles, system queries, execution graphs, and dependency-aware scheduling.

• Establish engine interfaces for physics, AI, sensor, weapon, behavior, and environmental models.

• Provide stable extension points for model developers.

• Design simulation loops, time-stepping, event processing, system ordering, state transitions, and deterministic replay mechanisms.

• Create multithreaded and task-based execution systems.

• Optimize memory layout, allocation, cache locality, component access, serialization, and data movement strategies.

• Profile and enhance CPU usage, memory consumption, latency, throughput, and simulation rates.

• Construct spatial indexing, broad-phase querying, collision-candidate detection, visibility, and proximity-query infrastructures.

• Incorporate externally developed physics and mathematical models.

• Develop systems for checkpointing, snapshotting, state replication, save-and-restore, and reproducible replay.

• Design the architecture for networked and distributed simulations.

• Create tools for entity inspection, system debugging, profiling, and simulation state analysis.

• Identify and resolve architectural bottlenecks.

• Lead engine design reviews, mentor programmers, and elevate C++ architecture and performance standards.

• Stay actively involved in implementation, profiling, debugging, and code reviews.

⛳️ Requirements

• Extensive professional experience in C++ development, or equivalent experience, focused on building performance-critical production software.

• Significant background in commercial game development, game engine development, or a similarly performance-sensitive real-time environment.

• Proven experience in shipping at least one commercial game, engine, platform, or interactive real-time product.

• Demonstrated ownership of foundational engine systems rather than primarily gameplay features, scripting, tools, or application-level integrations.

• Experience in building or significantly extending a physics engine, game engine, simulation runtime, ECS, job system, or a comparable core technology.

• Expert proficiency in modern C++, encompassing object lifetimes, ownership, templates, concurrency, synchronization, profiling, and low-level debugging.

• Strong grasp of data-oriented design, memory layout, cache behavior, allocation strategies, and performance-sensitive data structures.

• Experience in designing or extending an entity-component system or a similar composition-based runtime architecture.

• Familiarity with engine loops, execution graphs, task systems, event systems, dependency management, or runtime scheduling.

• Proven ability to optimize against strict CPU, memory, latency, and frame- or tick-time budgets.

• Experience utilizing commercial profiling and debugging tools.

• Working knowledge of real-time physics concepts, including coordinate systems, numerical integration, collision detection, spatial partitioning, constraints, and simulation stability.

• Experience in designing APIs, plugin systems, SDKs, or extension frameworks for use by other programmers.

• Experience in maintaining and enhancing a large C++ codebase while continuing to deliver production capabilities.

• Experience leading significant technical initiatives while remaining an active individual contributor.

• Active Secret clearance or eligibility to obtain one.

• Principal-level expectation: 10+ years of experience.

• Strongly preferred: SIMD, GPU compute, custom allocators, job systems, lock-free structures, or platform-specific optimization.

• Strongly preferred: experience with very large worlds or simulations involving numerous active entities.

• Strongly preferred: expertise in engine-level serialization, snapshotting, replay, world partitioning, or streaming.

• Strongly preferred: background in aerospace, robotics, autonomy, and defense simulations.

• Strongly preferred: experience with Air Force, Space Force, joint, or broader DoW acquisition and mission-analysis programs.

• Strongly preferred: knowledge of models for sensors, weapons, electronic warfare, jamming, communications, logistics, or command and control.

• Strongly preferred: active U.S. security clearance (Secret, Top Secret, or SCI/SAP).

• U.S. citizenship may be required for specific project assignments involving security clearance.

• Must be legally authorized to work in the United States.

🏝️ Benefits

• Comprehensive health care plan covering 100% of premiums, including medical, dental, and vision.

• 401k with a 5% matching contribution.

• Paid Time Off (uncapped vacation, plus sick leave and public holidays).

• Flexible hybrid or remote work arrangements.

• Relocation assistance available for qualifying employees.

• Competitive pay aiming for the upper end of the salary range.