Marek Rosa, CEO
Keen Software House
Marek Rosa is the CEO and CTO of GoodAI, a general artificial intelligence R&D company, and the CEO and founder of Keen Software House, an independent game development studio best known for its best-seller Space Engineers ( more than 4 million copies sold). Both companies are based in Prague, Czech Republic.
Marek has been interested in artificial intelligence since childhood. He started his career as a programmer but later transitioned to a leadership role. It all started as a small garage company. Marek started to develop games and engines in his spare time alongside his normal job as a programmer, after a while other volunteers joined him and helped him out, and eventually it became a studio. After the success of the Keen Software House titles, Marek was able to personally fund GoodAI, his new general AI research company building human-level artificial intelligence. GoodAI started in January 2014 and has over 30 research scientists, engineers, and consultants working across its Research and Applied teams. At this time, Marek is developing Space Engineers, as well as leading daily research and development on recursive self-improvement based general AI architecture - Badger and other projects. In his free time, Marek devotes himself to science, the development of knowledge in the field of artificial intelligence, both general and that which can be used in video games, as well as robotics. His great passion is also Romanesque architecture and history. This interest is reflected in our HQ Orangery in Prague, which Marek purchased for Keen Software house and GoodAI and sensitively renovated to reflect classical architectural elements.
I joined Keen fresh out of university and the company has always been extremely supportive of me. Many former and present coworkers have become close friends. During our collaboration I have worked on many different systems: voxels, planets, physics, threading, networking, serialization and much more. I believe this experience helps me make better informed decisions as team lead, and I try to pass this on to my colleagues.
Misa started working at Keen Software House in November 2021 as a Coaching and Development Specialist.
"I worked as a lecturer, coach, and therapist in many companies for several years and was very excited about the idea of internal coaching for Keen and GoodAI. As an internal coach, I have the opportunity to get to know all the people, the team, and the processes within the company, follow daily events, and participate in meetings. This allows me to identify the best soft skill education to include, when to offer coaching or psychotherapy, and how to generally improve company culture, cooperation, and employee satisfaction. Even though I'm not a passionate gamer myself, the people at Keen and GoodAI constantly prove to me how much a shared vision and enthusiasm motivate people to achieve their goals, deliver high-quality results, and build a collaborative team spirit.
In my free time, I love running and hiking and enjoy continuing education and reading books. Since people's development has always been my passion, I regularly share my psychological knowledge and enthusiasm for neuroscience with our team members. I recommend mindfulness techniques that help focus and concentrate at work and suggest the right free time activities that support the release of real dopamine, helping to maintain work-life balance and prevent stress and burnout symptoms. It is great to see how everyone is constantly improving both professionally and personally, and it's an honor to be part of such a team where I also develop and learn thanks to our team members every day.”
Tomáš is working in the company from 2020 as a Render programmer. Currently he is leading his own render team from Keen's HQ.
"I have enjoyed making games since my teenage years. I have started as a 3D artist contributing to freeware games and mods and over the time I shifted towards programming roles. Throughout the years I have worked in companies focused either on computer vision or games and I must say that making games is where my heart is.
Keen Software House was a clear choice for me. I already had several friends here and they recommended the company.
In 2023 I was given the opportunity to lead a small team of talented people and I'm really proud of what we are doing! The games and technology we are doing are unique, innovative and encourage creativity."
“There is not much time to play games nowadays, but I enjoy games with good stories, that are not that much about grinding e.g. The Last of Us, God of War. Other than that I love board games and to compensate for the time I spend behind the computer I try to spend as much time outside, on hikes as possible.“
Presentation
Keen Software House was founded in 2010 by Marek Rosa. Marek started as a programmer working independently on the Miner Wars games and the VRAGE engine. After some time Marek was joined by a few volunteers and a real studio was created.
We are an independent game development studio based in Prague, Czech Republic. Our main project is the sandbox video game 𝐒𝐩𝐚𝐜𝐞 𝐄𝐧𝐠𝐢𝐧𝐞𝐞𝐫𝐬 and 𝐢𝐧𝐡𝐨𝐮𝐬𝐞 𝐠𝐚𝐦𝐞 𝐞𝐧𝐠𝐢𝐧𝐞 𝐕𝐑𝐀𝐆𝐄. The game 𝐒𝐩𝐚𝐜𝐞 𝐄𝐧𝐠𝐢𝐧𝐞𝐞𝐫𝐬 has sold almost 5 million copies worldwide. VRAGE’s core feature is volumetricity within the environment. At this moment we are currently in the research and development phase, exploring new features of the VRAGE3 engine! Our goal is to support extremely large and fully dynamic and destructible environments, including planets, large spaceships, and any other creations built by the players.
We want to create games that are based on real science, real facts, real physics and real emotions. No magic & fantasy allowed. If we step into the sci-fi area - as we did with Space Engineers and Miner Wars 2081 - we approach it from the hard-sci-fi angle. Every technology and every idea must be explainable using modern-era knowledge with very little extrapolation required.
KSWH is a studio with around 100 talented people working all across the world. As a company with a full remote policy we have more than 20 nationalities among themselves.
What they are looking for
We believe that one of the strongest forces in the universe is the “need to create” and so we are looking mostly for those, who share this need with us.
We’re mostly looking for people with experience in the game industry - Programmers, Artists, Game designers and testers.
Our company culture is defined by goals, rather than standards. We believe that there is always room for improvement and innovation. Adapting our goals and striving for improvement, rather than complacency and merely meeting some standard is at the core of our values.
Strive to establish a positive company culture and ensure our teams understand why our company culture plays a huge role in our success. We want to earn the loyalty of our community and continue to grow that community. Our community can help serve as a guide to our future direction. Every team member can take action to strengthen us, as a company, and ensure we deliver only our best. Provide people with good working conditions. This includes our intern policy, equal opportunity, advanced education and personal development, flexibility, participation in external activities, and more.
Good to know
We are a group of very curious people who share hobbies and interests, not just in the area of AI, science, and video games, but in a broad range of pursuits like mountain climbing, drones, or Roman architecture.
Other things that might interests you:
- Company breakfasts and snacks.
- On-site gym and private garden.
- Office which looks like home.
- Team-buildings and parties.
- Private Chef Ceejay making us delicious lunch everyday.
- Private Psychologist and life coach Misa, ready to help you handle any challenges you may have.
Our motto:
- We’re getting it done.
- Work hard & work smart.
- Reality is the best game-designer.
- We design games that we want to play.
- Create a masterpiece.