Technical Director - Vancouver, Canada - Electronic Arts

Description

At Maxis, we excel at outrageous thinking. It's the fuel that inspires the best games in the world. We're trailblazers and great storytellers. But it's not just about amazing your peers – it's about amazing yourself and our fans. Take risks. Work with dazzling minds and dare to dream big. Together, we can change the way millions play every day.

Role Expectations

Lead the technology strategy, development and live operations of Project Dolores by working with the GM, Tech Art Director, TDs, Creative director & engineers.

Partner with engineering people managers to guide and nurture growth of engineers in the team.

Partner with the game's Technical Leadership group to define and implement strategic goals and milestones, establish best practices, and promote the core development values of the engineering team.

Work with Production, Development Directors, and other disciplines leads to scope tasks and input requirements.

Work with EA central teams to adopt shared technology and influence their roadmaps with Dolores' needs.

Create and adjust technical decisions and roadmap priorities for the game, using your technical expertise to draw out not only the WHAT & WHEN, but the WHY for the roadmap.

Provide technical mentorship and guidance to the engineering team.

Be a hands-on participant in architecture/design for our hardest technical challenges.

Review completed engineering deliverables before release.

Collaborate with broader team partners (design, art, XD, and so on) to ensure that engineering interests and values are represented and maintained through the course of development, and that features are being developed with Tech capabilities and performance limitations in mind.

Identify, manage, and drive to completion, risks and mitigations for the various game systems and backend services on the project.

Perform research to acquire new knowledge necessary to perform assigned tasks and maintain the technological evolution of the project.

Gain depth of knowledge of The Sims and EA's current game technology.

Own the hiring process for the game's engineering team by identifying skill gaps and work with talent acquisition and people managers to find and recruit candidates.

You have

10+ years of professional experience as a software engineer shipping games.

5+ years of experience leading a team of software engineers (10+) as a TD or lead engineer to architect, develop and live service mobile or cross-platform games.

Shipped 3-5 mid-size to AAA games as a TD (majority on mobile platforms is a +). At least one of them is/was in active live service.

Experience with performance analysis and code optimization.

Experience collaborating with producers, artists, designers, project managers and other engineers.

Experience with large scale software technical architecture and design.

Experience with productive and critical conversations with high performing and low performing engineers in the team.

Experience with long term career mentorship of software engineers with varying levels of experience.

Experience with at least one major cloud infrastructure solution (e.g. Amazon, Azure, Google.)

Expert in at least one of the following domains, and some experience with the other two:

Gameplay/simulation systems/stats driven gameplay system development.

Client/Server architecture & data model design for data-driven experimentation driven game systems.

Rendering/3D asset pipelines/game creation tools.

Bonus:

Experience working with simulation games.

Proficiency in Unity.

Interested in and/or experienced with Machine Learning.

COMPENSATION AND BENEFITS

The base salary ranges listed below are for the defined geographic market pay zones in these locations. If you reside outside of these locations, a recruiter will advise on the range and benefits for your specific location.

EA has listed the base salary ranges it in good faith expects to pay applicants for this role in the locations listed, as of the time of this posting. Pay offered will be determined based on numerous relevant business and candidate factors including, for example, education, qualifications, certifications, experience, skills, geographic location, and business or organizational needs.

BASE SALARY RANGES

• California (depending on location e.g. Los Angeles vs. Sacramento):

o $178,100 - $271,700 USD Annually

• New York (depending on location e.g. Manhattan vs. Buffalo):

o $166,700 - $271,700 USD Annually

• Jersey City, NJ :

o $201,800 - $271,700 USD Annually

• Colorado (depending on location e.g. Denver vs. Colorado Springs):

o $166,700 - $227,900 USD Annually

• Washington (depending on location e.g. Seattle vs. Spokane):

o $166,700 - $258,200 USD Annually

• British Columbia (depending on location e.g. Vancouver vs. Victoria):

o $134,250 - $220,050 CAN Annually

Base salary is just one part of the overall compensation at EA. In the US, we offer a package of benefits including paid time off (3 weeks per year to start), 80 hours per year of sick time, 16 paid company holidays per year, 10 weeks paid time off to bond with baby, medical/dental/vision insurance, life insurance, disability insurance, and 401(k) to regular full-time employees. Certain roles may also be eligible for bonus and equity. For British Columbia, we offer a package of benefits including vacation (3 weeks per year to start), 10 days per year of sick time, paid top-up to EI/QPIP benefits up to 100% of base salary when you welcome a new child (12 weeks for maternity, and 4 weeks for parental/adoption leave), extended health/dental/vision coverage, life insurance, disability insurance, retirement plan to regular full-time employees. Certain roles may also be eligible for bonus and equity.