GGG is Hiring for Eight Roles

Grinding Gear Games is looking to hire Visual Effects Artists, Server Administrators, 3D Rigging Artists, Quality Assurance Testers, a Human Resources Manager, Level Designers, Animators and C++ Programmers to support the development of Path of Exile and Path of Exile 2 in our office in Auckland, New Zealand. While we'd love to find a way to accept worldwide applicants, the current situation means that we cannot. For the QA and HR roles, please only apply if you currently reside in New Zealand and are either a New Zealand Citizen or Resident. For the other roles, we are also interested in talking to Australians as we expect the border with Australia will open sooner than with the rest of the world.

Visual Effects Artist

Requirements:

• Three years of experience creating game art
• Experience creating real-time game effects in a wide range of software
• Superior eye for lighting, value, color, details, and the ability to use them in creating efficient and impactful visual effects
• Self-motivation, excellent communications skills, and able to work within a team
• Positive attitude and able to receive and provide objective feedback
• Passion for creating 'dark and gritty' spells and microtransactions

This is a full-time role in Henderson, Auckland. Please only apply if you currently reside in New Zealand or Australia and are either a New Zealand Citizen, Resident or Australian Citizen. Our country's borders are closed and we will not be assisting with applying for work visas for this role.

To apply for this role, please email your resume, portfolio/reel (demonstrating relevant artistic skills) and a cover letter to hr@grindinggear.com. You must be willing to complete an art test if requested to do so.

3D Rigging Artist

Requirements:

• At least one year of rigging experience for games.
• Ability to create clear, non-destructive, user-friendly rigs for various characters, monsters, or effects.
• Ability to brainstorm and research new techniques and ideas for rigging solutions.
• Ability to troubleshoot rigging related technical issues that may arise during production.
• Self-motivation with excellent communications skills, and ability to work within a team.
• A positive attitude and able to receive and provide constructive objective feedback.
• A passion for games with knowledge in basic scripting and animation being a plus.

This is a full-time role in Henderson, Auckland. Please only apply if you currently reside in New Zealand or Australia and are either a New Zealand Citizen, Resident or Australian Citizen. Our country's borders are closed and we will not be assisting with applying for work visas for this role.

To apply for this role, please email your resume, portfolio/reel (demonstrating relevant artistic skills) and a cover letter to hr@grindinggear.com. You must be willing to complete an art test if requested to do so.

Level Designer

Responsibilities

• Create immersive and replayable gameplay that supports and enhances the core mechanics and aesthetic.
• Ensure a high level of quality through close collaboration with the Creative Director, Art Directors, Game Designers, Environment Artists, Sound Designers and other disciplines.
• Integrate the content produced by other disciplines for your designs into the game engine (new gameplay elements, AI, sound, etc)
• Quickly learn to master our internal tools, and assist in making them better.
• Conduct gameplay evaluations with the team, providing feedback and suggestions to help fine-tune the game
• Locate and fix bugs in both your own and your colleagues' work

Qualifications

• 2+ years of game industry experience
• Game design sensibilities
• Excellent written and verbal English communication skills
• Experience using Maya or a high level of proficiency in a similar 3D modeling tool

This is a full-time role in Henderson, Auckland. Please only apply if you currently reside in New Zealand or Australia and are either a New Zealand Citizen, Resident or Australian Citizen. Our country's borders are closed and we will not be assisting with applying for work visas for this role.

To apply for this role, please email your resume, portfolio/reel (demonstrating relevant artistic skills) and a cover letter to hr@grindinggear.com. You must be willing to complete an art test if requested to do so.

Animator

Requirements

• 3 years of animation experience
• Solid body mechanics and experience animating general combat, melee weapons and magic for both human, animals and abstract monsters.
• Proven experience in a professional production pipeline and the ability to create high-quality key frame animations.
• Solid knowledge of Maya.
• Independently self-motivated team player with excellent communication skills.

This is a full-time role in Henderson, Auckland. Please only apply if you currently reside in New Zealand or Australia and are either a New Zealand Citizen, Resident or Australian Citizen. Our country's borders are closed and we will not be assisting with applying for work visas for this role.

To apply for this role, please email your resume, portfolio/reel (demonstrating relevant artistic skills) and a cover letter to hr@grindinggear.com. You must be willing to complete an art test if requested to do so.

Linux Server Administrator

Requirements - experience with the following technology:

• Linux server administration (3 years minimum experience)
• Assembling computer hardware and diagnosing hardware faults
• SQL database administration experience
• Configuration management (e.g. puppet, chef, etc.)
• Monitoring systems (e.g. zabbix, nagios, etc)
• Continuous integration (e.g. buildbot)
• Scripting and automation
• Reasonable familiarity with bash, python and SQL.
• Willing to be on call on rotation
• Path of Exile

Experience with the following is helpful:

• Zabbix
• Puppet
• Buildbot
• Postgresql
• Berkeley DB
• NGINX
• C++
• PHP

This is a full-time role in Henderson, Auckland. Please only apply if you currently reside in New Zealand or Australia and are either a New Zealand Citizen, Resident or Australian Citizen. Our country's borders are closed and we will not be assisting with applying for work visas for this role.

To apply for this role, please email your resume and a cover letter to hr@grindinggear.com.

C++ Gameplay or User Interface Programmer

Requirements:

• A Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering or equivalent
• Strong knowledge of modern C++
• Excellent communication skills
• At least six months of commercial game programming experience
• Must be able to pass our technical C++ programming test (approximately one hour long)

Pluses:

• Experience with our game, Path of Exile

This is a full-time role in Henderson, Auckland. Please only apply if you currently reside in New Zealand or Australia and are either a New Zealand Citizen, Resident or Australian Citizen. Our country's borders are closed and we will not be assisting with applying for work visas for this role.

To apply for this role, please email your resume, some C++ code samples and a cover letter to hr@grindinggear.com.

Human Resources Manager

Responsibilities include:

• Developer acquisition/recruitment.
• Populating employment agreements and other employment documents.
• Office health and safety.
• Assisting department leads with performance appraisals.
• Employment relations and policy development.
• Offering advice and support to both managers and employees throughout the company.

Our ideal candidate has:

• A relevant tertiary qualification.
• A strong knowledge of New Zealand employment legislation.
• Experience in Human Resources Advisory or Management roles within commercial organisations in New Zealand.
• A track record in leading and delivering best practice business approaches and systems to create and sustain a high-performance workplace.
• Extensive experience advising managers on human resource matters.
• Experience coaching and training others.
• Excellent communication skills.
• Great computer skills and some experience with payroll and/or HR systems.

Pluses:

• An interest in gaming, especially Path of Exile.

This is a full-time or part-time role in Henderson, Auckland. Please only apply if you currently reside in New Zealand and are either a New Zealand Citizen or Resident. Our country's borders are closed and we will not be assisting with applying for work visas for this role.

To apply for this role, please email your resume and a cover letter to hr@grindinggear.com.

Quality Assurance Tester

This role involves:

• Testing new Path of Exile content and features to find problems.
• Communicating these problems to the development team through our issue tracking software.
• Following up on the state of these problems and working with developers to resolve them.
• Checking candidate builds of content updates and patches for problems by going through checklists.
• Scripting automated test-cases and improving our testing tools.

You should meet these requirements:

• A bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, game design or an equivalent qualification.
• At least three months of work experience performing quality assurance for computer games, or other team-based work experience.
• 1000 hours of experience with our game, Path of Exile. Our game is extremely complicated and members of our quality assurance team require vast experience with all aspects of the game. While there is some training, it is vital that you already fully understand the game itself in order to apply for this role.

It helps to meet these other requirements:

• Have good communication skills.
• Be highly organised and hard working.
• Have the ability to multitask and prioritise work when required.
• Have excellent computer and technical skills.
• Be seeking a long term position.

This is a full-time role in Henderson, Auckland. Please only apply if you currently reside in New Zealand and are either a New Zealand Citizen or Resident. Our country's borders are closed and we will not be assisting with applying for work visas for this role.

To apply for this role, please email your resume and a cover letter (introducing yourself and your history with PoE, including your account name) to hr@grindinggear.com.