Founding Engineer - San Francisco - Pax Historia

Description

Founding Engineer (Unity Mobile)

Our Company

Pax Historia is defining a new category of gameplay using the latest advancements in generative AI. Our platform brings together the depth of grand strategy with the creative freedom of a sandbox experience, all fueled by a passionate community that creates and remixes scenarios on our platform.

Our community publishes hundreds of scenarios per day, plays millions of rounds a week, and is growing quickly. In addition, we're backed by Y Combinator, Pace Capital, and Z Fellows. Your work will immediately ship to a product used by hundreds of thousands of players.

Please apply on Ashby.

The Role

We're hiring a founding-level Unity developer to build our native mobile app, working in-person full-time in San Francisco (in Dogpatch). You will report directly to the cofounders.

Our current position:

• A web-based game with strong product-market fit - especially in the alternate-history niche.
• Hundreds of thousands of users who have been requesting a native mobile experience.
• A well-documented TypeScript codebase with clear data models and API patterns you'll integrate with.
• No existing Unity codebase. You'll be architecting from scratch.

What you'll work on:

• Building our core gameplay loop for iOS and Android: interactive map, action submission, event viewing, and AI-driven chat.
• Creating a performant 2D map rendering system capable of displaying thousands of regions with smooth pan/zoom and animated territory changes.
• Developing a consistent UI component library that matches our web design system (custom components, Poppins typography, dark/light modes).
• Integrating with our existing Firebase/Supabase backend and AI services via REST APIs.
• Implementing push notifications and deep linking for seamless user engagement.
• Optimizing for lower-end mobile devices and memory-constrained environments.

TLDR: Your work will bring Pax Historia to mobile and unlock our next phase of growth

What this role is NOT:

• This is not a traditional 3D game development role. We don't need complex shaders, physics simulations, or particle systems.
• The core challenges are 2D UI/UX consistency and performant map rendering not visual fidelity.

Resources you'll have:

• Direct access to our existing TypeScript codebase and API documentation.
• Essential CI/CD tools and sandbox environments for fast development.
• A culture of rapid code review so you can ship and test quickly.
• The cofounders' full attention (you'll be our primary mobile investment).

How performance will be measured:

• Your goal will be to ship a polished mobile app that matches the core web experience and achieves strong user retention metrics.

This is an intensive role and you should expect to work around 50-60 hours per week for the first few months; after that, hours may begin to decrease. There is potential for slight flexibility (ie, 1 day/week hybrid) but we have a strong preference for candidates who can commit to in person work.

Culture

Most of our players have discovered Pax Historia organically (friends, youtube reviews) and have stuck around because we truly care about the game we're building. That's why we want every one of our employees to care deeply about our product too. History, fantasy, or sci-fi nerds are especially welcome, but if you can articulate why you'd be excited to work on our game, we'd love to hear from you.

Pax Historia is still an extremely small company, so you'll be working directly with the cofounders and a few other employees. You should be self-driven, a team player, and willing to advocate for your ideas. The cofounders will not be hand-holding: their leadership strategy is to 'get out of the way' of employees to let them do their best work.

Finally, flexibility is also very important. Since we are scaling very rapidly and still working with a small team, you should come to work willing to help solve a variety of problems on the fly.

Your Qualifications

Core Competencies:

• You have shipped Unity apps to the App Store and/or Google Play.
• You can build polished, responsive 2D UI systems in Unity.
• You understand mobile performance constraints and can optimize for memory, battery, and lower-end devices.
• You can integrate Unity apps with REST APIs and backend services.

Product & Ownership Mindset

• You care deeply about UI/UX polish (pixel-perfect alignment, smooth animations, consistent styling).
• You are willing to work on the "boring" but important problems like caching, offline handling, and edge cases.
• You take ownership of problems and are comfortable advocating for your ideas (while remaining open to evidence).
• You know when to say "no" to yourself and us when something isn't worth the complexity or risk.

Nice to Have

• Experience building 2D map/tile-based rendering systems.
• Familiarity with design systems and building reusable component libraries.
• Experience implementing push notifications and deep linking in Unity mobile apps.
• Background in strategy games, simulation games, or map-heavy applications.
• Prior work at an early-stage startup or as a founding engineer.
• Experience with Firebase (Authentication, Firestore).

What We Don't Require

• A specific degree, academic pedigree, or publication record.
• Prior game industry experience at a AAA studio.
• Advanced 3D graphics or shader programming skills.
• Perfect knowledge of everything listed above.

Compensation

Salary range is from $150,000 to $215,000 depending on your relevant qualifications and experience.

Selected candidates can expect to receive 0.25% - 1% equity. Vesting schedule is a 12 month cliff and 4 year monthly vesting. We will also be offering a non-matching 401k plan.

This job listing is for a W-2 employee opportunity. We are unfortunately unable to sponsor visas (other than O1) at this time. Pax Historia is an equal opportunity employer and does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, national origin, age, disability, or veteran status.