Game Developer Manager  - Huntsville, AL

VetJobs • Huntsville, AL

12d • Onsite

About The Position

Pinnacle is seeking an experienced Game Developer Manager to lead its game developer team within the Virtual Programs business area. This hands-on leadership role focuses on building, mentoring, and scaling a high-performing team in a technical, mission-focused environment. The manager owns personnel tasking, production planning, and resource allocation across concurrent projects, working with subject matter experts, instructional systems designers, software engineering and art leads, QA, and program managers to define schedules, ensure design quality and technical accuracy, and drive execution.

The role combines people leadership and production management with direct contribution to virtual instructional content. The manager will set technical standards, implement content in game engines, and work with custom development tools and frameworks. Daily work requires experience with Unity 3D and/or Unreal Engine and the ability to learn custom toolsets. Success requires balancing realism, performance, and instructional fidelity while supporting military training customers in a fast-paced, collaborative production environment.

Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree in game design, game development, engineering, computer science, or a related technical discipline.
• 10+ years of professional experience in game development, including at least 4+ years in a lead or supervisory role managing game developers and production pipelines.
• Advanced proficiency in Unity and/or Unreal.
• Ability to balance hands-on production with leadership responsibilities in a fast-paced, collaborative environment.
• Excellent communication skills and ability to coordinate across disciplines and translate technical requirements into actionable development tasks.
• Understanding of software development best practices, including version control, code review, and testing methodologies.
• Proficiency in debugging, performance analysis, and optimization tools within game engines.
• Experience in software and hardware integration and testing.
• Must be a U.S. citizen and able to obtain a Secret Security Clearance.

Nice To Haves

• Experience supporting simulation, training, or serious games projects and familiarity with military vehicles, aircraft, or technical platforms.
• Experience developing and establishing standards and performance guidelines for real-time applications.
• Experience using Jira or similar project management tools to plan, track, and manage tasks, sprints, and dependencies across projects and team members.
• Familiarity with file versioning and asset management workflows such as Git, SVN, or Perforce, including defining, enforcing, and troubleshooting team-wide source control practices.
• Strong scripting skills in C#, C++, and LUA.
• Familiarity with VR/AR development for training applications.

Responsibilities

• Lead and manage the game development team, providing technical direction, mentorship, performance feedback, and day-to-day production guidance.
• Own game development production planning and execution across multiple projects, including task breakdown, resource allocation, schedule development, and dependency coordination with engineering, design, and production leads.
• Establish, document, and evolve the game development pipeline to support consistency, efficiency, and scalability across platforms and projects.
• Set and enforce technical quality standards, ensuring accuracy, consistency, and performance for training-focused applications.
• Create and review virtual training content based on provided references and subject-matter-expert input.
• Oversee implementation of game development content in Unity and Unreal Engine, ensuring it meets performance budgets, virtual trainer standards, and engine-specific requirements.
• Collaborate with engineering and design teams to support interactive training goals, instructional fidelity, and technical constraints.
• Review and approve deliverables, providing actionable feedback and ensuring they meet development and customer requirements.
• Improve team capabilities, tools, and workflows to support changing project demands and emerging real-time rendering technologies.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Senior