Senior Unreal Engine Software Engineer

Company Description Virtual AI Officer through Intelligent Acres builds intelligent digital twins: living models of a business that let decisions be tested before they are made in the real world. Our twins are not visualisations, they are decision systems. Combined with AI, they allow organisations to explore scenarios, uncover insights, and operate with clarity and confidence. We work with OpenUSD, NVIDIA technologies, real-time 3D, and modern capture techniques, and we believe the digital twin will soon be as fundamental to every business as the website. Based in Gippsland, Australia, and working with clients across manufacturing, infrastructure, and education, Intelligent Acres offers a hands-on environment for people who want to make powerful real-time technology usable for everyday organisations, not just large enterprises.

Role Description We are looking for a freelance Unreal Engine Lead to drive development of real-time interactive game and simulation environment, working directly with the founder and our AI-assisted development workflow. You will own the Unreal side of the build: gameplay and simulation logic, data-driven systems architecture, UI, and performance on modest hardware, taking work from greybox prototype through to polished, deliverable milestones.

This is a lead role in a small, fast-moving team. You will make and document architectural decisions, keep systems modular and data-driven rather than hard-coded, review and integrate AI-assisted work, and communicate clearly about trade-offs, scope, and progress. Every build decision is tested against a real question: does this create genuine value for the end user?

The engagement is 2 days per week, fully remote, starting with a paid 2-week trial and extending to an initial 3-month term for the right person, with potential to continue beyond that as our project portfolio grows.

Qualifications

• Proven experience shipping or leading production-ready Unreal Engine projects (UE5 preferred), including performance optimisation, profiling, and debugging.
• Strong Blueprint and C++ skills, with a track record of designing modular, data-driven, maintainable systems.
• Solid foundation in software architecture: you can design a system, explain why, and document the decision.
• Experience building gameplay or simulation loops: player input, physics or flight-style mechanics, scoring and validation systems, UI/UX flows.
• Ability to hit a performance budget on modest consumer hardware, not just high-end rigs.
• Comfort working independently in a small remote team, communicating decisions clearly to technical and non-technical stakeholders, and delivering to agreed milestones.
• Familiarity with AI-assisted development workflows, digital twins, OpenUSD, or 3D Gaussian Splatting is a plus.
• Interest in educational or serious-games experiences is a bonus.

Location: Australia or International, Remote working arrangement. Flexible but ideally Asia Region and Timezone.