Team Roles
Three staffing pictures: the minimum viable team to ship the MVP (Phase 2 — 1v1 LAN, 3 leaders, 3 armies), the scaling team for Phase 3 multiplayer + content, and the launch team for shipping. Roles can stack on a single person at the smallest scale; they break apart as scope grows.
Minimum Viable Team — Through MVP (Phase 2)
The smallest credible team to land the MVP build (M0–M12 on the roadmap). One person can wear two hats here, and likely will.
| Role | Owns | Headcount |
|---|---|---|
| Game Director / Lead Designer | Vision, GDD ownership, scope calls, milestone gates, playtest analysis. | 1 (founder) |
| Gameplay Engineer (UE C++) | Hex grid, tile state, path system, combat loop, leader system. M0 → M10. | 1–2 |
| Network Engineer | Server-authoritative state, fog-gated replication, RPC validation, M11–M12. | 1 (can stack with gameplay engineer at MVP scale) |
| UI / UX Engineer | Path-edit UI (the most novel UX surface), HUD, lobby, replays-readiness. | 1 |
| Technical Artist | Hex tile materials, leader VFX, tile-state visualizers, performance budget. | 0.5–1 (likely contractor at MVP) |
| Producer / Ops | Build pipeline, Perforce health, milestone tracking, external comms. | 0.5 (can stack with director early) |
Total at MVP: ~4–5 FTE (with stacking).
Scaling Team — Through Phase 3
Phase 3 means up to 12 players, dedicated server, AI, and the M16 roster of 3 leaders / 3 armies. Content production starts here.
| Role | Adds (vs. MVP team) |
|---|---|
| AI Engineer | Strategic + tactical AI layers; difficulty tiers; M15. |
| Game Designer (Combat / Balance) | Stat curves, leader kit design, balance pass via match telemetry. |
| Concept Artist | Leader silhouettes, army identities, biome moodboards. |
| Character Artist | Leader models, army unit kits (modular). |
| Environment Artist | Hex tile sets per biome, skyboxes, lighting variants. |
| Animator | Leader rigs, idle/move/ability cycles, unit cycles (lightweight per unit). |
| VFX Artist | Combat flashes, ability VFX, tile state changes (claim, level-up, destroy). |
| Sound Designer / Composer | Combat layers, leader-VO if applicable, music per phase of match. |
| QA Lead | Test plans, regression catalogs, balance signal collection from playtests. |
Total at scaling: ~10–12 FTE.
Launch Team — Phase 4
What the team looks like at full content production for ship.
| Role | Adds (vs. scaling team) |
|---|---|
| Backend / Live Ops Engineer | Leaderboards service, match history persistence, account / inventory. |
| Tools / Pipeline Engineer | Map editor, mod pipeline (if shipping), telemetry pipeline. |
| Additional content artists | 9 more leaders / 9 more armies / multiple biomes — content load is real. |
| Community Manager | Discord, social, patch notes, playtest cohort management. |
| Marketing / PR | Pre-launch press, launch beat, ongoing campaign coordination. |
| Esports / Tournament Coordinator | Optional. Only if competitive scene is part of the strategy. |
Total at launch: ~18–25 FTE.
Role Profiles in Detail
Gameplay Engineer (UE C++)
Spends most of their time in AxonRush/Source/AxonRush/ writing the systems that
define the game. Should be very comfortable with UE 5.x C++, replication, and
writing data-driven gameplay using TInstancedStruct-based composition.
Should not be married to GAS — we're not using it.
What they ship
- Hex grid system, tile state structures, path data + UI integration.
- Spawn/walk/combat tick loops at 3s / 2s / 3-rounds-per-sec.
- Tile rule implementations (Pass-through, Upgrade, Build, Resource).
- Leader controller, ability overlay, vulnerability matrix.
Network Engineer
Owns the server-authoritative model and fog-gated replication. The single most load-bearing technical role in the project — this game does not work without tight, scalable replication.
What they ship
- Visibility-mask replication boundary.
- Path-edit RPC validation (ownership, adjacency, budget).
- Match lifecycle: lobby → countdown → play → end.
- Reconnect routing and state-resume.
UI / UX Engineer
The path-drawing UI is the most novel surface in the game. UMG plus a strong design instinct for at-a-glance information density. This person owns the player's whole moment-to-moment readability of the board — a hard problem on a 12-player marathon map.
AI Engineer
Owns the AI from M15 onward. Will need a strategic layer (where to expand, when to attack) and a tactical layer (path drawing, weight tuning, leader use). Difficulty tiers are part of the role — the easy tier should lose gracefully, not embarrassingly.
Game Designer (Combat / Balance)
Owns the stat curves, leader kits, and the balance feedback loop with the engineering team. Strong spreadsheet + telemetry instincts. Should be comfortable hand-tuning numbers and reading match data to refine them.
Technical Artist
Owns the visual language of the board: hex tile materials per state (owned, level indicators, HP pool damage), leader VFX, ability flashes, performance budget on mid-spec hardware. This person is the bridge between art and engineering.
What We're Not Hiring (Yet)
- Narrative designer — the game has no story mode in scope. Lore is light, set-dressing rather than central.
- Mobile / console specialists — PC-first means PC-only at launch. Port specialists are a post-launch decision.
- Engine-specific tools team — UE 5.7's stock tools cover us.
How to Apply / Engage
Pre-production stage. We're not running a formal hiring pipeline yet — this page exists so the people we talk to informally have something to read. If you've found this site and want to discuss a role, the right move is to reach out to whoever shared it with you, or read the rest of the docs first and form an opinion of where you'd contribute.