Team Lead – Drone Flight Simulator (Unreal Engine)

About the Project 

We are developing a drone flight simulator built on Unreal Engine. Our prototype is functional, and we are now scaling toward a production-ready product. We're looking for a Team Lead who combines hands-on Unreal Engine expertise with the ability to mentor a team and drive technical decisions. You'll be working directly with our existing developers—a level designer, a physics simulation specialist, and a programmer—guiding architecture, solving performance challenges, and ensuring we build systems that scale. 

Team Size: 3 direct reports (with potential to grow) 

Required Expertise 

Unreal Engine 

- Deep understanding of rendering pipeline bottlenecks: draw calls, overdraw, GPU vs. CPU binding 

- Practical experience implementing Level of Detail (LOD) strategies for complex environments 

- Proficiency with Hierarchical LOD (HLOD) for large open-world or aerial-view scenarios 

- Familiarity with Unreal 5 features: Nanite virtualized geometry, Lumen, World Partition 

- Experience with level streaming, occlusion culling tuning, and mesh/material optimisation 

- Ability to profile performance (GPU Visualizer, Unreal Insights, stat commands) and translate findings into actionable improvements 

- Experience developing local multiplayer systems in Unreal Engine 

AI and Autonomous Behavior Systems 

- Strong experience with Unreal's Behavior Trees and Blackboard architecture 

- Knowledge of Environment Query System (EQS) for spatial reasoning and decision-making 

- Understanding of layered AI architecture: strategic decision-making, tactical planning, and physics-constrained execution 

- Experience designing AI that operates under realistic movement constraints (momentum, acceleration limits, turning radius) 

- Familiarity with utility-based AI patterns or other decision-making frameworks beyond behavior trees is a plus 

Physics Simulation and Analysis 

- Experience with Unreal's physics systems for realistic object simulation 

- Understanding of Chaos Destruction or similar systems for dynamic fragmentation 

- Ability to implement event-driven data capture (collision events, impact recording, telemetry logging) 

Team Leadership 

- Proven experience leading or mentoring small development teams (2-5 people) 

- Ability to translate high-level product goals into concrete technical tasks 

- Experience establishing workflows for teams with mixed experience levels 

Nice to Have

 - Experience with AirSim, PX4, ArduPilot, Cesium, or other drone simulation frameworks 

- Background in defense, aerospace 

- Familiarity with drone flight dynamics 

Location 

Our preferred location is Kraków, Poland, where we can offer office-based or hybrid arrangements. We will consider strong candidates located elsewhere in the European Union for remote collaboration, with periodic travel to Kraków. 

We look forward to hearing from you