This position has been filled. Thank you to everyone who applied.

If this still sounds like an ideal job for you, please reach out. We are always looking for more help from the right candidates.

Universe Sandbox is a space and gravity simulator masquerading as a video game with over 800,000 unit sales and an overwhelmingly positive 95% rating on Steam.

Giant Army is looking for a creative and highly technical physics engineer to help implement and improve our real-time physics simulation and collision system.

We are a close-knit multidisciplinary team of astrophysicists, engineers, graphics developers, and designers that highly values individual contributions and collaborative problem-solving. The company name, Giant Army, was inspired by the concept of “standing on the shoulders of giants.”

Our mission is to reveal the awesomeness of the universe and the fragility of our planet through real-time interaction, creation, and destruction of a realistic, science-based simulation.

Help us solve the complex challenge of simulating interactions and collisions of objects:

  • Across all scales (human-scale, asteroids, moons, planets, and stars)
  • At a wide range of user-controllable time speeds (from super slow to super fast)
  • While being enjoyable on a wide variety of hardware (from gaming PC to mobile devices)

What would it actually look like if you collided the Moon with the Earth, the Earth with Jupiter, Jupiter with another gas giant, or spawned a black hole inside of the Moon (and also all of those at the same time)?

You might be the perfect candidate if you enjoy physics, programming, and celestial destruction, constrained by consumer hardware and the need for realism.

This is a full-time, remote position working with a 100% remote team.
Join us. We’re making something incredible that’s unlike anything else.

Your Role

  • Develop improvements and innovations to our custom physics engine
  • Focus on realism and scientific accuracy while delivering creative solutions to allow for high performance on consumer hardware
  • Proactively observe the simulation, notice issues and areas for improvement, propose solutions, and take ownership to see the implementation through to release
  • Build upon, innovate, and improve our existing simulations of:
    • Similar-sized planetary collisions (like Earth colliding with Earth)
    • Ultra-high-speed collisions (objects colliding at fractions of the speed of light)
    • Objects breaking apart from high rotational speeds
    • Deformation of objects from tidal forces
    • Exploding objects
    • And other physics simulation features you’re excited by
  • Stay current on Unity’s tech and trends. We’re working on a major rewrite to be more closely integrated with Unity’s DOTS Physics

Qualifications

  • Professional or personal programming projects showing your talent and love of physics
  • Experience with C# & Unity DOTS (although these specifics could be learned if you’re a great coder and love physics)
  • Ability to write and maintain your own physics code (not just implement an existing physics engine)
  • Strong attention to detail and a love of polish & iteration
  • Passion for science, astronomy, and real-time interactive simulations
  • Love of fantastical what-if scenarios: what-if.xkcd.com (note citation #6 on 148)
  • Ability to see things from our user’s perspective
  • Appreciation of video games

Company Overview

Giant Army is a profitable company wholly owned by Universe Sandbox’s original creator; we have no publishers, marketing department, or external stakeholders to derail our vision. We are a decentralized, remote team founded in Seattle, Washington, USA, with members across the United States, Germany, Denmark, and Australia.

Team members enjoy a flexible, collaborative environment that values work-life balance. We are independently published and release updates on our own (relaxed) schedule.

Giant Army provides generous paid time off, new hardware/software reimbursements, healthcare, and other benefits.

We pursue features that get us excited about science. We strive to create an accessible experience that can’t be found anywhere else.

As a fully remote team since 2011, we rely on Google Workspace (Gmail, Calendar, Docs, Spreadsheets, Meet), Slack, Groove, GitHub, ZenHub, Unity, WordPress, and Notion.

We believe science and video games are for everyone, regardless of identity, and we’re committed to making an inclusive workplace. We encourage anyone who shares our passion for space to apply.

Product Overview

Universe Sandbox is a physics-based space simulator that allows you to create, destroy, and interact on an unimaginable scale. Experiment with gravity, climate, and collisions to reveal the beauty of our universe and the fragility of our planet.

It’s more than a game; it’s a way of experiencing and learning about reality in a way that’s never been done before.

Universe Sandbox is available on Windows, Mac, Linux, and VR with mobile in development and future platforms planned. We’ve sold over 800,000 copies and have an “Overwhelming Positive” rating on Steam with 95% positive user reviews.


If we don’t have an active job opening that fits your skill set, but working on Universe Sandbox is your dream job, send us an email telling us why and we’ll at least send you back a reply.

How to Apply

This position has been filled. Thank you to everyone who applied.

If this still sounds like an ideal job for you, please reach out. We are always looking for more help from the right candidates.