Kinetic Games
Junior Programmer
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About Kinetic Games
We’re an independent games studio best known for creating Phasmophobia, enjoyed by millions of players worldwide. Our team is passionate, creative, and collaborative and we’re looking for someone equally enthusiastic about games to join our growing team.
We’re a small but fast growing, friendly team that values creativity, openness, and personal growth. Whether you’re helping various departments or talking about your favourite horror game, you’ll be part of a supportive environment where passion and curiosity are celebrated. You’ll be joining a small but ambitious team where your ideas are valued, your growth is supported, and your development truly matters.
About the role:
As a Junior Programmer at Kinetic Games, you’ll join a tight, highly technical team responsible for building and maintaining the systems that power Phasmophobia.
This role is ideal for someone early in their career who is hungry to learn, comfortable taking ownership of small but meaningful features, and excited to work in a fast-moving environment where every line of code has visible impact.
You’ll work closely with other departments to implement gameplay features, fix bugs, improve tools, and contribute to the long-term technical health of the project. We value curiosity, initiative, and the ability to communicate clearly.
In your first 6–12 months, you’ll contribute meaningfully to the codebase by shipping multiple small features and improvements while steadily becoming a dependable problem-solver who can fix bugs with minimal supervision.
You’ll develop a solid understanding of the project’s architecture and coding standards, communicate clearly and consistently with the team, and begin taking ownership of small systems or internal tools as you grow in confidence and capability.
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This role is hybrid based at our office in Southampton. At this time, we are unable to provide visa sponsorship. Applicants must have the right to work in the UK.
Your responsibilities will include:
- Implement small-to-medium gameplay features under guidance from senior programmers.
- Maintain and extend existing systems (AI, networking, UI, tools, etc.).
- Write clean, maintainable, well-documented code.
- Investigate and resolve bugs across gameplay, UI, and engine-level systems.
- Reproduce issues reported by our QA team and the game community.
- Help maintain performance and stability across PC and console builds.
- Work with designers to translate feature specs into technical tasks.
- Communicate progress, blockers, and risks clearly to the team.
- Participate in code reviews both giving, and receiving feedback.
- Assist in improving internal tools and workflows used by designers and artists.
- Help maintain project structure, asset organisation, and build pipelines.
- Actively seek mentorship from senior engineers.
- Stay up to date with best practices and emerging techniques.
- Demonstrate steady improvement in code quality, debugging, and ownership.
Requirements:
- Solid understanding of C# and object oriented programming.
- Experience with Unity (university, personal projects, or shipped indie titles).
- Understanding of common game dev concepts: components, prefabs, events, coroutines, physics, basic AI, etc.
- Ability to debug issues logically and systematically.
- Strong communication skills, able to explain technical ideas clearly.
- Ability to take feedback constructively and iterate quickly.
- A portfolio or GitHub demonstrating real projects (game jams, prototypes, coursework).
- Self motivated, organised, and comfortable working in both an office & remote environment.
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Describe the experience and attributes of the ideal candidate.
Nice To Haves:
- Experience with Unity’s Input System, Netcode, or ScriptableObject based architectures.
- Familiarity with profiling tools (Unity Profiler, RenderDoc, etc.).
- Understanding of multiplayer concepts (RPCs, replication, lag compensation).
- Experience with VR development.
- Experience with editor tooling or custom inspectors.
- Interest in horror games, co op systems, or emergent gameplay.
- Familiarity with Phasmophobia as a player.
- Experience working in small teams or on shipped projects.
- Proactive problem solver who enjoys figuring things out independently.
- Comfortable asking questions early and often.
- Passion for learning new systems and improving workflows.
Our Interview Process
We aim to keep our recruitment process straightforward and engaging:
Stage 1: First interview
Stage 2: Programming Test
Stage 3: Final Interview
Benefits & Perks
- 💰 Comprehensive Reward Package
- 💼 Enhanced Employer Match Pension Scheme
- 💸 Annual Bonus
- 🍽️ Weekly Free Team Lunches
- 🎉 Regular Social Events
- 🏠 Hybrid & Flextime Working
- ⚽ Access to Southampton Football Club Tickets - subject to availability and sponsor allocation
- 📦 Relocation Package (within the UK only)
- 🚗 Electric Vehicle Car Scheme
- 🏅 Employee of the Month Vouchers
- 🧘 ♀️ Personal Wellbeing Allowance
- 🤝 Recruitment Referral Scheme
- 🎓 Training & Development Budget
- 🚀 Training & Career Development
- 💚 Vitality Health Insurance
- 🛡️ Aviva Life Insurance
- 🎂 30 days Holiday in Total
- 🎄 Christmas Studio Shutdown
The pay range for this role is:
28,000 - 30,000 GBP per year (Southampton, UK)
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