We all know by now that Sony Santa Monica went through a round of layoffs back in February, at the same time cancelling an unannounced project led by God of War III Creative Director Stig Asmussen.
In the meanwhile some of those that were laid off found new homes (some close to home at Ready at Dawn), and Asmussen himself was almost immediately hired by Respawn Entertainment as a Game Director on a project that hasn’t been announced yet.
On the other hand, Sony Santa Monica hasn’t been publicly hiring since. The developer’s own career page has been direly deserted, only displaying two old ads from December, and no opportunity appeared on Sony’s own job offers sites.
But the silence has finally been broken, and Sony’s critically acclaimed studio finally opened its gates again, ready to welcome new blood within its ranks. The studio just posted a career opportunity ad for a Senior Staff Gameplay Programmer.
Sony Santa Monica is seeking a senior gameplay/generalist programmer to join the team behind the critically acclaimed “God of War” games.
In this gameplay generalist role you work on the technologies that the designers, artists, and other contents creators use to bring life to our games. Systems worked on may include animation, locomotion, navigation, combat and weapons, sound, instancing, scripting, tools, and many more. You work closely with customers to identify problems, provide solutions, and to overall improve the quality of their experience and their ability to iterate with the systems provided to them. You maintain an open dialog with all customers, inviting feedback, and constantly look for areas of improvement.
We value talent, self-motivation, and team spirit. In turn, we provide an environment with a large degree of freedom and autonomy.
If you’re a programmer and feel that you’re up to the challenge, this might very well be your chance. As for me, as usual I’m much happier to report about people finding a job (or offering one), than about those working on the games we love being laid off.
Hopefully, this will be just the first of many, as Sony Santa Monica ramps up to finally announce what the studio has been working on. We should be fairly close, by now.
