(logo and character by Kyle McKernan)

We’ve talked some in the past about how one of the things we do as an indie game studio to dilute and manage risk is take on client and contract work. This has ups and downs but it’s been instrumental to our survival for the last ten years in an unpredictable market, and it’s how we got our start in the first place. Our most recent external project is the most interesting one we’ve ever worked on, but we need a little help to finish it up.

QUICK SUMMARY: this is a paid, part-time programming contract in Unity, targeting mobile devices, with a duration of probably a few months at least. Mostly UI and network stuff, remote collaboration is fine, work-for-hire. Work starts on or around September 1st. Finji works with a diverse set of collaborators and applicants from under-represented groups are strongly encouraged to apply.

If you’re a freelance Unity programmer with any mobile & network experience, please bear with me…

Project Quorum is a citizen science mobile app that uses some novel techniques to get regular folks up to speed and able to participate in the markup, categorization, and annotation of real science data. The current focus is primarily on biology and particularly microscopy (think real small pictures of cells and neurons and stuff). We are designing it as a kind of meditative / wind-down app that folks can play on the way home from work or doing a few quiet minutes a day.

And we’re not doing it alone! We are working with real live scientists from the University of Utah and some biotech companies, on a grant from the NIH. It’s the real deal. This particular initiative is one of the ways that we can help build up a database that can eventually feed a machine-learning algorithm and massively change the way we process hard-to-automate biology imagery and scans. We’re super proud of the work we’ve done on this thing, especially in terms of exploring new and more intuitive methodologies for both collaborating with researchers and on-boarding new untrained folks to participate.

However…

Adam, our co-founder and Overland’s lead programmer (that’s me), has been programming and designing the app solo since last Fall, and simply can’t keep up. It’s not really fair to our other projects nor to this excellent app. So we’re hoping that maybe you can help us out here.

So what exactly needs doing? Well, so far we’ve developed working, scientifically sound proofs of concept for three different markup activities, wireframed the basic app flow, started exploring the visuals. So a lot of the broad design is done, and we need someone who can come in and handle the rest of the hands-on programming of the app. It should go without saying that this is a paid gig. We are expecting the work to be part-time but last for several months. Remote work is fine! We have Slack. Here are some of the specific tasks that need to be done:

  • Hook up all the nice art from Kyle (esp game HUD and menus)
  • Download data sets from our server
  • Upload player results to our server
  • Handle secure user logins
  • Handle nasty network errors nicely
  • Optimize the activities to run better on mobile
  • Hook up the music and sound fx
  • General and misc polish tasks
  • Collab with our artist, sound designer, and our backend dev

We will not be asking this new collaborator to work on shaders, handle production / scheduling things, server-side dev, or do any game design stuff.

In terms of applicants, Finji is always looking for someone who is a good communicator and a good problem-solver. Due to the particular nature of the work, it will probably be least frustrating for someone with at least some experience in:

  1. Unity development
  2. Mobile development
  3. Client / server stuff

Even if you don’t have the longest resumé or the biggest portfolio, we’d still love to hear from you. We are looking for candidates that like to solve problems in creative ways and who are good at communicating and collaborating. In our experience, experience doesn’t always imply those particular qualities.

If you’re interested in how we operate as a studio, we’ve written some about that here. This should also go without saying but Finji has hired POC, women, and students in the past and will continue to do so in the future. We strongly encourage applicants from under-represented backgrounds to apply for this job.

I’m probably forgetting some super important piece of information in here but this is a start at least. That’s what Edit Post buttons are for I guess. So, if you’re interested in helping us finish Project Quorum, please email adam@finji.co with “Project Quorum” in the subject line. We’re looking at bringing this new engineer online by September 1st if possible, so we look forward to hearing from you.

Thanks!