Principal Physics Programmer, C++ – Modeling & Simulation

Stellenbeschreibung:

Architect and implement the core C++ runtime behind a large-scale, interactive wargaming platform
Own the structure, performance, and long-term health of a substantial engine codebase
Design and evolve an entity-component-system architecture for large numbers of heterogeneous simulation entities
Build data-oriented component storage, entity lifecycle management, system queries, execution graphs, and dependency-aware scheduling
Define engine interfaces for physics, AI, sensor, weapon, behavior, and environmental models
Create stable extension points for model developers
Design simulation loops, time stepping, event processing, system ordering, state transitions, and deterministic replay
Develop multithreaded and task-based execution systems
Optimize memory layout, allocation, cache locality, component access, serialization, and data movement
Profile and improve CPU utilization, memory use, latency, throughput, and simulation rate
Build spatial indexing, broad-phase query, collision-candidate, visibility, and proximity-query infrastructure
Integrate externally developed physics and mathematical models
Develop checkpointing, snapshotting, state replication, save-and-restore, and reproducible replay systems
Establish architecture for networked and distributed simulation
Build tooling for entity inspection, system debugging, profiling, and simulation-state analysis
Identify and eliminate architectural bottlenecks
Lead engine design reviews, mentor programmers, and raise C++ architecture and performance standards
Remain hands‑on in implementation, profiling, debugging, and code review

Requirements

Extensive professional C++ development experience, or equivalent experience, building performance‑critical production software
Significant experience in commercial game development, game‑engine development, or a similarly performance‑constrained real‑time environment
Experience shipping at least one commercial game, engine, platform, or interactive real‑time product
Ownership of foundational engine systems rather than primarily gameplay features, scripting, tools, or application‑level integrations
Experience building or substantially extending a physics engine, game engine, simulation runtime, ECS, job system, or comparable core technology
Expert command of modern C++, including object lifetimes, ownership, templates, concurrency, synchronization, profiling, and low‑level debugging
Strong understanding of data‑oriented design, memory layout, cache behavior, allocation strategies, and performance‑sensitive data structures
Experience designing or extending an entity‑component system or comparable composition‑based runtime architecture
Experience with engine loops, execution graphs, task systems, event systems, dependency management, or runtime scheduling
Demonstrated ability to optimize against hard CPU, memory, latency, and frame‑or‑tick‑time budgets
Experience using 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 designing APIs, plugin systems, SDKs, or extension frameworks used by other programmers
Experience maintaining and improving a large C++ codebase while continuing to deliver production capabilities
Experience leading major 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: very large worlds or simulations with large numbers of active entities
Strongly preferred: engine‑level serialization, snapshotting, replay, world partitioning, or streaming
Strongly preferred: aerospace, robotics, autonomy, and defense simulations
Strongly preferred: Air Force, Space Force, joint, or broader DoW acquisition and mission‑analysis programs
Strongly preferred: 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 certain project assignments involving security clearance
Legally authorized to work in the United States

Core Competencies

Demonstrates extensive expertise in C++ development for performance‑critical applications, with a strong focus on engine architecture, multithreading, and real‑time simulation. Proven ability to optimize complex systems and mentor teams while maintaining high standards in code quality and performance.