Clockwork Acorn is working on an unannounced action game and is looking for a Gameplay Programmer to help us make it and hopefully many more in the future! We are a small fully-remote South African indie game dev studio striving to create timeless games with chunky design while being a force for good in the world.

In this role, you will work closely together with other engineers to turn game ideas into reality by writing code, owning the development of individual game features, and creating the technical systems needed to support other team members. You’ll also be playing a key part in our game design process, creating the delightful, surprising, and challenging experiences we want to give to our players.

You will work directly with our Creative Director, Francois, who has led engineering and design on multiple games throughout his decade-long career including Jetstream, Cozy Grove and its sequel, Steambirds Alliance and Terra Nil.

What we’re looking for

• Experienced game programmer and designer 
• At least 1 year of experience working in technical roles.
• Some experience working on games is required. Game jams and passion projects are perfect!
• Adept at working in a remote team.
• Strong ability to self-manage and consistently deliver good work to schedule.
• Excited by our vision, and the idea of adding your efforts to it.
• Based in South Africa.
• Bonuses (not required)
  • You like making games, prototyping, and taking part in game jams.
  • Experience with console porting.
  • Experience with shader programming and graphics pipelines.
  • Experience with procedural content generation systems.
  • Experience with enemy AI systems, including pathfinding, behaviour trees, etc.
  • Experience with online multiplayer games and netcode.
• Diverse candidates are especially encouraged to apply!

What we’re offering

• Be an integral part of making our own interesting games.
• Work with a passionate, caring, professional team.
• Plenty of opportunities to learn and grow on the job.
• Start date: 1 July 2025, or as soon as you’re available.
• Full-time long-term position, but we’re willing to consider other arrangements.
• Pay: R25,000 – R60,000 per month, depending on your experience and needs.
• Profit share scheme (details still TBD).
• Remote work: work from anywhere in South Africa.
• Flexi-hours with no crunch.
• Permissive personal and sick leave policy.

About us

Clockwork Acorn is a South African game studio that strives to be a force for good in the world. We’ve been making games since 2014 and we want you to be part of writing our next chapter! Our vision is:

• Make timeless games with chunky design
  • Systemically interesting and thought-provoking design
  • Games that don’t age
• Be a great place to work
  • Fully remote work with flexi-hours
  • Safe, anti-racist, feminist, LGBTQ+ friendly space
  • Diverse team
  • No crunch
• Be impactful on the South African game industry and beyond

You can learn more about how we like to do things by looking at our team handbook.

Our hiring process

Applications that pass our initial screening will have up to three interviews with different team members. Shortlisted candidates might be asked to do a short unpaid test (of no more than a few hours), or a longer paid test. We hope to wrap up the process for all candidates and make a final selection soon after applications close, but that might be delayed if we receive a lot of new applications near the end.

Interested?

Please fill in the short form linked below and submit your CV/resume, portfolio and supporting documents. This listing will be open until 23:59 SAST on 17 June 2025, so make sure to apply before then! We don’t use any AI systems to parse or classify your submission, and we ask that you extend us the same courtesy when answering our questionnaire and going through our hiring process.

We are a small team and read every application in detail, and while we will try to get back to you as soon as possible, it may take us some time if we receive many applications.

Don’t meet every requirement listed in this job description? Do you think your experience level is not yet where it needs to be? Studies show that women and people of color are less likely to apply to jobs unless they believe they meet every single qualification. Clockwork Acorn wants to maintain a diverse, inclusive, and equitable workplace. If you’re interested in this position but your past experience doesn’t line up perfectly with every qualification in the job description, we want you to apply anyway.