Sony - managing their recruitment

Excellent salary and benefits packages, based in LIVERPOOL, CAMBRIDGE and LONDON

This is the UK's largest games developer and publisher; this company has 3 UK studios and 6 branches abroad. Growth over the last 2 years means that 800 staff now achieve a turnover of £150million from some of the biggest titles in the business.

Datascope are the managing agents for all of SCEE's development recruitment across all locations. If you have any queries about the opportunities available, please contact Julien Hofer.

If it's specialist advice you seek, then please speak to Andrea Denton for programming positions, Marr Rock for artists and animators, Lucy Phillips for design positions and Donna Orlowski for producers/project managers.

CAMBRIDGE

ARTIST VACANCIES

Check back soon for coming vacancies.

DESIGN VACANCIES

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PRODUCTION VACANCIES

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PROGRAMMER VACANCIES

PlayTV Engineer

We are looking for an experienced programmer to contribute to the ongoing development of new Lifestyle and Leisure products. Working within a small team, the role will involve maintaining and extending an existing code-base, to meet the requirements of its future product revisions. The candidate will be expected to take responsibility of a diverse area of code technologies. As such, they will be a flexible engineer: able to - and comfortable with - picking up new areas of the code-base at short notice. An exciting opportunity at an early stage of the next iteration of the title, the position allows considerable scope to contribute to the ongoing design of the product, and play a key part in shaping its long-term future.

The role may suit those without games experience, or those looking for a break from "full" games development.

Requirements:
- The candidate will have demonstrable excellent competency in C and C++ and would have employed them on at least one released console product.
- Experience in the authoring of UI systems and their integration with backend applications.
- Excellent written and verbal communication skills are a must.

Optional ideals for this position would be:
- An appreciation of the challenges posed by limited-resource hardware architectures (consoles or embedded systems.)
- Experience with application integration of online technologies.
- A familiarity with the Python scripting language.
- A familiarity with the PlayStation® 3 development environment and tool suite.
- A familiarity with the PlayStation® 3 QA and TRC process.
- A familiarity with the ‘Hansoft’ project management solution.
Ref no: CAM29844
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LIVERPOOL

ARTIST VACANCIES

Technical Artist

This strong studio is looking to add to it's vibrant studio. Some new projects are firing up and your help and skills would be needed. Sony Liverpool are happy to consdier artist from Junior through to more Senior Levels.
They would like a bit of experience and demonstrable script writing skills (MEL, Maxscript or Python).
A character or animation background wouldn't go amiss.

Please provide samples and CV's that show your ability to work in both the art and programming development.
Ref no: LIV30069

DESIGN VACANCIES

Check back soon for coming vacancies.

QA VACANCIES

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PROGRAMMER VACANCIES

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LONDON

ARTIST VACANCIES

PS3 Technical Artist

As Technical Artist within this group you will support the Senior Technical Artist to ensure that the art teams have all of the relevant tools and workflows for peak efficiency.
You will act as a bridge between art and engineering disciplines assisting in the maintenance and optimisation of the art pipeline, investigating game engine technologies, shaders, plug-ins, art techniques and new packages that would save time, improve the workflow, and develop the game engine to push the art of various projects in the studio.

You would be required to work with the team’s engine coders, as well as liaise with the R&D departments.

Sony require you to have a good level of understanding in industry standard art and programming packages. PS3 experience is preferred.
Ref no.: ET28864

VFX Artist

The London Studio Art team are looking for a highly motivated VFX artist who can demonstrate experience and enthusiasm for generating game visual effects. This role will focus specifically on the design and creation of visual effects, helping to craft high quality in-game effects for multiple titles.

You will be responsible for the creation of a wide range of visual effect art assets, created within the constraints of the target budget.

You will be responsible for all technical and aesthetic considerations for the project’s visual effects.
You will create final quality visual effects using Maya and proprietary tools.
For serious consideration you must have at least 2 years experience in the games industry and at least one published title

(At least 1 year of experience as a VFX Artist).
Ref no.: ET29679

PS3 Technical Support Artist

This position offers a great opportunity within a high profile SCE project. Please find a brief overview of what would be expected from you.

- Experience with content production pipelines. e.g. scene exporting, DDS creation and light mapping techniques.
- Support experience with knowledge of one or more customer relationship management systems.
- Knowledge of scripting languages such as Lua or Python is very desirable.
- Basic knowledge of a 2D image manipulation tool (Photoshop) is desirable
- Good communication skills, both written and verbal.
- Experience with content production pipelines. e.g. scene exporting, DDS creation and light mapping techniques.
- Support experience with knowledge of one or more customer relationship management systems and source control software applications desirable.

Friendly and approachable attitude, willing to work hard under pressure and be passionate about assisting others. Strong MAXscript experience as well as more pure tools experience and scripting experience is high on the wish list.
Ref no: ON29856

DESIGN VACANCIES

Senior Designer

Sony is currently looking for a Senior Designer.

Skills needed for this role include:
- Experience in social gaming
- Be able to deliver good narrative within a game
- Self motivation and to guide a small team

More details coming soon.
Ref.: ET28567

PRODUCTION VACANCIES

Assistant Producer

We now seek an experienced and enthusiastic Assistant Producer to join its Home Platform Development Team. The job will involve assisting the production team with the planning, scheduling and day to day management of the Home Client Art, Design and Content teams. The ideal candidate should have experience in project tracking and scheduling, ideally on a complex development project. They should be extremely well organised with the flexibility to work within a rapidly changing development environment. Some experience with game design, art or animation would be a definite advantage. This position offers a great opportunity within a high profile SCE project.
Ref no.: ON30388

Technical Producer

Sony Computer Entertainment is looking for an experienced and enthusiastic Associate Producer / Producer to join its team for PLAYSTATION Home. The job will involve assisting the production team with the planning, scheduling and day to day management of the code teams, both for the Home Client and the HDK tools. The ideal candidate should have experience in project tracking and scheduling, ideally on a complex development project. They should be extremely well organised with the flexibility to work within a rapidly changing development environment. Knowledge of programming languages, games and tools development would be important. This position offers a great opportunity within a high profile SCE project.<
Ref no.: 30389

Senior Producer

Currently they are looking for a Senior Producer for one of their most successful products. Your remit will be to timely delivery of all disc based titles and offline features developed by the group, in accordance with the quality standards set by the Game Director and Discipline Leads. You will be responsible for defining, evangelising and enforcing best practice for the Producers of the group and line management for the Producers on the offline team.

Resolve time-cost-quality conflicts, supervise post-mortem execution at the end of each title and ensure approved issues are turned into action points. Define and enforce production processes for scheduling, budget tracking, managing risks, managing change, dealing with slippage, etc. Track overall budget and spending to ensure control of development costs. Balance production considerations with quality and creativity in decision-making.

In addition you will ensure all stakeholders are aware of the current state of development and progress. Maintain effective communication with the team and facilitate feedback from all territories and regions to give the title universal appeal. Carry out direct line management responsibilities through recruiting, developing, training and career progression.

You should have an excellent understanding of the game development process and a solid knowledge of the techniques of design, art, programming, audio/video, and QA. You must have worked on at least three finished titles and have experience in managing a team of Producers or Project Managers. Be able to work across multiple disciplines, have excellent written and verbal communication skills, plus experience in the casual gaming market. An interests in music would be beneficial and you should be a practitioner in Scrum or equivalent methodologies.
Ref no: SS29782

Senior Producer / Project Manager

As a Senior Producer you will be responsible for delivery in accordance with the quality standards set by the Creative Lead and costs and timelines set by Production Manager. You will be the point-of-contact for development-related issues, champion and enforce best practice to the entire team You will also be the direct line manager for the Lead Artist, Lead Designer and Lead programmer

Key areas of responsibility:
Project management
- Responsible for delivery to quality, time and costs standards set by the Creative Lead and Production Manager
- Apply and use processes and templates as provided by the Production Manager
- Enforce production, art, code and game design best practise throughout development
- Identify project milestones and develop/maintain a strategy to ensure they are attained
- Work with Creative Lead and team leads to define detailed deliverables and task lists
- Assign work through team leads; review task delivery and address slippage
- Proactively manage change requests and identify time-cost-quality conflicts. Resolve such conflicts with the Creative Lead or provide recommendations to the Production Manager to resolve such conflicts, using feedback from team leads
- Proactively identify risks and the impact on projects, submit proposed recommendations to the Production Manager
- Track budget and spending to ensure control of development costs
- Carry out post-mortem reviews after each title is completed and recommend action points to the Production Manager
- Work with the Production Manager to continuously improve best practise
- Co-ordinate the build process and delivery of versions to QA, and maintain the integrity of the bug databases
- Balance production considerations with quality and creativity in decision-making

Communication
- Point-of-contact for anything relating to the development and delivery of the title
- Ensure all stakeholders are aware of current state of development and progress
- Maintain effective communication with the entire team, at all levels
- Facilitate feedback from all territories and regions to give the title universal appeal
- Report to the Production Manager on project development
- Ensure good and constant communication between a number of multi-functional groups within SCEE (Central and Territory Marketing, QA, Business Affairs, Operations, etc.) and SCEA and SCEJ; sending copies of all approved milestones
- Ensure approved milestones are ready to be presented to an external audience within 10 mins

Team Management
- Carry out direct line management responsibilities for the assigned development team through recruiting, developing, training and appraising with the Discipline Leads
- Responsible for ensuring teams maintain strong morale, focus and efficiency
- Improve team work-life balance and team efficiency
- Coordinate the organisation and scheduling of regular team meetings
Ref no: ET29877

Associate Producer

We are looking for a motivated, energetic and enthusiastic person to join the International Software Department. The role is as Associate Producer, working on games developed in Japan and the US, and to be published in Europe by SCEE.

The Associate Producer will be responsible for every aspect of the development of their title(s) in Europe, and will assist on other projects.
Specifically, but not exclusively:
- Accurately schedule and track game development, identifying potential problems and resolving them before they happen.
- Actively progress projects with SCE Japan, SCE America, plus other developers/IP holders on a daily basis.
- Work closely with first party q/a, localisation q/a and submission q/a to ensure all projects stay on track.
- Manage and direct the localisation of the game.
- Ensure that Marketing and PR departments have everything they need, and are kept fully informed, in order to ensure your games get the best support possible.
- Working as key member of a small team.
- Working with up to 12 languages per game, dependant on the project.

Requirements:
- Experience as an Assistant or Associate Producer.
- Computer Literate with the ability to learn new software applications essential.
- Must be familiar with the MS Office applications.
- General project management skills.
- Wide ranging knowledge of games and the games industry.
- Excellent communication and negotiation skills essential.
- Excellent organisational skills essential.
- Excellent attention to detail essential.
- Foreign language knowledge a plus.
- Fast learner.
- Self Motivated.
- Knowledge of Japanese desirable but not essential.
Ref no.: ISD29708

PROGRAMMER VACANCIES

Senior Windows Application Programmer

This is an exciting opportunity for a talented programmer to join Sony Computer Entertainment Worldwide Studios' Advanced Technology Group (ATG) to work on the GPU performance analysis & debugging tool, PS3 GPAD (GCMReplay); used by PLAYSTATION®3 developers worldwide.

The ATG is a central, highly skilled group that provide tools and technology to game developers throughout SCE Worldwide Studios (the Product Development arm of Sony Computer Entertainment). In addition, they also provide support and technology, such as PLAYSTATION ®EDGE, to licensed PLAYSTATION®3 developers worldwide. The group is based in both the London and Cambridge UK studios.

The team are looking for an expert Windows UI programmer, who is familiar with the most recent technologies, to lead the design and development of user interface components for this tool.

Candidates must meet the following minimum requirements:
- 5 years C++
- 3 years C#, C++/CLI
- 3 years Windows .NET
- 1.5 years Windows MFC/Win32
- 3 years designing & developing Windows application user interfaces
- Experience writing code to process large datasets efficiently
- Multi-threaded programming experience

In addition to these requirements, an understanding of GPU hardware architecture & graphics programming is also desirable; however, not essential.
Ref no: 30278

Game Programmer

Sony is looking for a Programmer to design and implement software based on existing computer vision algorithms and help game teams integrate them. The candidate will need to understand the output from the vision algorithms, and create interfaces that are flexible and game friendly. They will create sample game mechanics to illustrate how the algorithms should be used. The ability to communicate with game designers and programmers as well as with computer vision researchers is essential. They should also be able to think of creative new ways to use the algorithms to spark new avenues of investigation.

Requirements:
- A degree in a technical subject (e.g. computer science/ maths/physics)
- Good knowledge of the C++ programming language,
- 2+ years of commercial programming experience.
- Experience of image processing
- Strong verbal and written communication skills
- Experience of programming game mechanics and input mechanisms.
Ref no.: ET27781

Game Support Programmer

They need a Programmer to support the game teams by implementing solutions on the PS3 using the R&D group’s computer vision library. The successful candidate will be required to investigate the game team’s problems and communicating the consequences of the various solutions. They will then implement the solution using the computer vision library. This will inevitably mean writing additional functionality for the library as required.

Requirements:
- A degree in a technical subject (e.g. computer science/ maths/physics)
- Good knowledge of the C++ programming language.
- 2+ years of commercial programming experience.
- Experience of image processing
- Strong verbal and written communication skills
- Experience of game development.
Ref no.: ET27782

Game Prototype Programmer

They are looking for a Game Prototype Programmer to work on a new game mechanic prototypes focussing on novel interaction methods. The successful candidate will be working closely with computer vision researchers and game designers to rapidly prototype new input mechanisms. They will need to be able to take direction well and also need creative flare and a good understanding of what makes things fun.

Requirements:
- A degree in a technical subject (e.g. computer science/maths/physics)
- Experience of Human Computer Interaction (HCI)
- Good knowledge of the C++ programming language.
- 2+ years of commercial programming experience.
- Experience of image processing
- Strong verbal and written communication skills
- Experience of game development.
Ref no.: ET27783

Graphics Programmer

We are looking for an experienced graphics programmer to work on the technology group supplying the London Studio's most exciting games, including EyePet and Singstar. This is the opportunity to push the limits of graphics programming. With technology such as fur, clothing, physics simulations and state of the art shaders, the areas of work are varied and challenging.

Requirements:
- 2+ year’s practical knowledge of C++
- 1+ year’s experience of graphics programming.
- Shader language experience
- SPU Programming, or comparable PS2 VU programming
- At least 1 published title
- Self motivated and resourceful.
Ref no.: ET27324

GUI Programmer

We are looking for an experienced front end GUI programmer to deliver fast and fluid graphic user interface for one of the London Studios most exciting games, EyePet.

Requirements:
- 2+ year’s practical knowledge of C++
- 1+ year’s experience of GUI programming
- At least 1 published title.
- Excellent communication skills
- Self motivated and resourceful

Optional Requirements:
Flash Experience (Action Script)
Localisation experience
Ref no.: ET27343

Senior Art Tools Programmer

Sony Computer Entertainment is looking for a Tools Programmer to join its tools team for PLAYSTATION Home. The job will involve maintenance, development and support on the Home Development Toolkit. We are looking for an experienced developer with good 3D Studio MAX experience. The candidate should also have experience of development on art tools pipelines and demonstrate good communication skills. This position offers a great opportunity within a high profile SCE project. Ref no.: ON27080

Tools Programmer

Sony Computer Entertainment is looking for a Tools Programmer to join its tools team for PLAYSTATION Home. The job will involve maintenance, development and support on the Home Development Toolkit. We are looking for an experienced developer with good all round tools development experience, particularly Windows Forms and C# development. This position offers a great opportunity within a high profile SCE project.
Ref ON27081

Gameplay Programmer

We are looking for an experienced gameplay programmer to deliver fun and exciting gameplay experiences on one of the London Studios most exciting games, EyePet. This is the opportunity to bring life and character to a virtual pet, interacting with objects and the player in a unique way; With the PS Eye camera. The successful candidate will work in a scrum/sprint team of artists, animators, designers and other programmers, to create fun gameplay experiences, creating experiences that engage the player, and keeping the player excited and wanting more. He/she will create believable responses, interactions and behaviours for the pet.

Requirements:
- 2+ year’s practical knowledge of C++
- 1+ year’s experience of gameplay
- At least 1 published title.
- Excellent communication skills
- Self motivated and resourceful

Optional Requirements:
- Artificial Intelligence and behaviour system experience.
- LUA scripting language experience
- Vision analysis / processing experience
Ref no.: ET27314

LUA Code and Test Engineer

Sony Computer Entertainment is looking for a LUA Code and Test Engineer to join its tools testing team for PLAYSTATION Home. The job will involve taking responsibility for all LUA API testing, creating LUA test samples to be used by the tools test team, creating and updating test documentation and reporting any issues found. The ideal candidate will be an experienced LUA programmer with general and unit testing experience. This position offers a great opportunity within a high profile SCE project.
Ref no.: ON29296

LUA Scripter

Sony Computer Entertainment is looking for a candidate to fill a Junior LUA Scripter position.
Working within the Art department, using the PlayStation®Home Development Kit, the candidate will be responsible for creating interactive lua driven elements for content in PlayStation®Home. These could range from environmental objects such as information terminals and draw bridges to large games like Pool and Chess.

As a member of the PlayStation®Home team the successful candidate is expected to be self-motivated and become highly skilled whilst in this position.
Ref no.: PN29674

Snr Web App Developer

Sony Computer Entertainment is looking for an experienced Web Programmer to join its tools team for PLAYSTATION Home. The job will involve maintenance, development and support on Content Management and Asset Publishing tools. They are looking for a well rounded C# developer with good exposure to MS SQLServer and ASP.NET. The candidate should have a strong programming background, ideally C++ or Java rather than PHP or VB. This position offers a great opportunity within a high profile SCE project.
Ref no.: ON26338

Web Developer - All Levels

Currently they are looking for experienced Web Developers at various levels to join their tools team for PLAYSTATION Home. The job will involve maintenance, development and support on Content Management and Asset Publishing tools. They are looking for a well rounded C# Developer with good exposure to MS SQL Server and ASP.NET. You should have a strong programming background, ideally C++ or Java rather than PHP or VB. This position offers a great opportunity within this high profile company.

Gameplay Programmers

They need a number of experienced and talented Gameplay Programmers for a new project. Candidates will be degree educated and have previous gameplay experience, ideally with one shipped product to their name. Strong C++, the ability to work closely with designers and artists to shape gameplay and the desire to contribute innovative and original ideas all essential.

For Producers contact Julien	- email julien@datascope.co.uk
For Programmers contact Andrea	- email prog@datascope.co.uk
For Artists/Animators contact Matt	- email matt@datascope.co.uk
For Games Designers contact Lucy	- email lucy@datascope.co.uk