Principal Software Engineer

Role Description

We’re hiring a Principal Software Engineer to join our App Engineering team and help lead the technical direction of Vortex, our flagship desktop mod manager used by millions of PC gamers. You’ll be one of the most senior technical voices on the team: writing production code, making architectural calls, and raising the bar for everyone around you through mentorship and example. If you’ve spent your career going deep on hard systems problems, performance, concurrency, platform integration, API design and want that depth to matter to millions of real users, this is that role.

Why is this role unique?

• A native desktop application running on wildly varied consumer hardware and OS configurations.
• 500+ supported games, each with its own file formats, load order logic, and installer quirks.
• Deep OS-level integration: file systems, the Windows registry, drives, processes, code signing, auto-update.
• A public extension API with an active third‑party developer ecosystem building on top of your work.
• A large, vocal, technically engaged user base that stress‑tests every release in the wild.

You’ll help shape the systems behind mod installation, sorting, conflict resolution, downloads, and profile management for millions of active users and you’ll help take Vortex from Windows‑first to genuinely cross‑platform.

Role Responsibilities

• Ship high‑impact work across the Electron main process, renderer, and extension layers.
• Own the hardest bugs in the codebase: race conditions, performance regressions, gnarly state issues.
• Drive architecture decisions that span multiple teams, in partnership with engineering management.
• Review code and set technical standards through example, not just process.
• Mentor engineers across levels in Electron, React, TypeScript, and the modding domain.
• Steward a public extension API used by an active third‑party developer community.
• Identify and pay down technical debt in a large, long‑lived, actively used codebase.
• Work closely with Product, Design, QA, Community, and Backend to turn ambiguous problems into shipped features.
• Improve build, packaging, and release tooling for the whole team.

Role Requirements

• Deep, senior‑level experience building and evolving substantial production systems; desktop, gaming, or creator tooling backgrounds are a strong plus.
• Strong TypeScript and modern JavaScript in production.
• Real Electron experience: main/renderer architecture, packaging, code signing, auto‑update, and cross‑platform quirks (Windows and Linux).
• Strong React experience, including state management at scale.
• Solid Node.js fundamentals: async patterns, streaming I/O, child processes, native addons.
• Experience designing public APIs or SDKs for external developers, versioning, deprecation, backwards compatibility.
• Strong system design instincts applied to client‑side software: module boundaries, plugin architectures, data flow, persistence.
• Experience with desktop CI/CD, reproducible builds, and signed release pipelines.
• A track record of mentoring engineers and lifting the technical level of the teams you’re on.

Bonus Skills

• Experience with client‑side auth and download/distribution systems.
• Background at high‑scale desktop platforms or launchers (Steam, Epic, GOG Galaxy, Battle.net, or similar).
• Experience taking a Windows‑first app cross‑platform or maintaining Windows/Linux parity in production.
• Knowledge of gaming file formats, save systems, load orders, or plugin architectures.
• Experience building tools for creators or user‑generated content communities.
• Familiarity with Bethesda’s Creation Engine, FOMOD, Wabbajack, or similar modding standards.
• A genuine interest in gaming or modding culture.

Benefits

• We work a 4‑day week of 32 hours, with no reduction in pay.
• An allowance of £25 each month to spend on video games.
• Employee Assistance Programme.
• Private BUPA healthcare for you and your family.
• A very flexible training budget.
• Regular social events throughout the year. Participation is optional!

Diversity and Inclusion

We celebrate diversity and want you to bring your whole self to work. Supporting an incredible community of tens of millions of users, we thrive on engaging as many views as possible to improve our platform. We see no reason why our culture should be any different.

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