Naughty Dog

SDET Programmer

Naughty Dog · Santa Monica, CA
Santa Monica, CA $110K–$138K Posted 2026-07-09
Salary
$110K–$138K
Type
Full-time
Experience
3+ yr

This is a hybrid/ onsite position.

For nearly 40 years, Naughty Dog has been crafting best-selling, critically acclaimed games that constantly push the boundaries of narrative, gameplay, and technology. Naughty Dog recently released The Last of Us Part II Remastered as well as a current generation remake of The Last of Us Part I for the PS5. We're also proud to say that The Last of Us Part I and Part II are now available for the first time on PC. Currently, we’re busy at the kennel working on Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet, and we'd love to find talented individuals to join us.

Naughty Dog games have long been lauded for their evocative, character-driven stories and attention to detail. We are committed to innovation within our games and as such have curated some of the top creative and technically innovative minds in the industry. We welcome a diverse pool of candidates and believe that a broad range of cultural and life experiences contribute to the overall well-being and success of the studio and the titles we craft together.

We have a small SDET team, so you will interact with multiple departments, game systems and pipeline technologies. As a member of SDET at Naughty Dog, you will experience direct ownership, serving as both primary point of contact for your responsible areas within the wider studio, as well as being expected to own and drive their development. You will experience varied and challenging responsibilities requiring a high level of adaptability and a taste for discovering cutting-edge technologies.

What you will do:

  • Operate, maintain, and improve multiple continuous integration processes for both source code and assets builds
  • Operate, maintain, and improve the packaging and mastering process of the titles
  • Deploy and maintain project branches throughout the development of the titles
  • Collaborate with fellow engineers and QA to develop, operate, and maintain an extensible automated testing infrastructure within the studio for use in development
  • Work with artists, designers, and any other necessary departments to keep the studio working efficiently by ensuring a fast delivery of stable game updates
  • Identify, author and deploy automated tests for both game code and tools as needed
  • Responsibilities may evolve based on needs

What skills you will use:

  • Experience with continuous integration systems
  • Strong skills with python
  • Strong skills with C++
  • Good working knowledge of Perforce
  • Minimum of 1 shipped AAA game
  • Minimum of 3 years working in the video game industry
  • Bachelor’s degree in Game Development, Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field

Bonus Skills:

  • Experience with console programming
  • Experience working in a C++ game engine
  • Experience with databases and query optimizations
  • Experience with backend development, including databases
  • Experience with frontend web development with HTML, JavaScript, etc.
  • Experience with machine provisioning and deployment (e.g. Ansible)

As part of the Naughty Dog application process, candidates should expect to be given a technical interview.

#LI-AB1
The estimated USA base pay range for this zone (Los Angeles area) is listed below. This role may be eligible for additional compensation packages that includes annual bonus and other incentive plans.
$110,500 — $138,100 USD

Please note, Sony Interactive Entertainment conducts background checks at the offer stage for all new employees (which may include criminal background checks for some roles) and will need to process personal information to support these checks.

Please refer to our  Candidate Privacy Notice  for more information about what personal information we collect, how we use it, who we share it with, and your data protection rights.

JavaScriptC++
$110K — 10th pctl $265K — 90th pctl
This role’s midpoint $124K vs. market median $180K for Engineering roles
-30%
below median
Based on 22,000+ Engineering roles with disclosed salary ranges tracked on NewJob.
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