Director, Engineering (New Games Division)

Job Posting Title
Director, Engineering (New Games Division)
Why Big Fish Games?
Big Fish Games is the home of some of the biggest hit mobile casual games including EverMerge, Gummy Drop!, Cooking Craze, Fairway Solitaire, and many more.

• We foster a fun environment that inspires creativity
• We are curious and constantly seek improvement in all we do because that’s what our business demands
• We listen actively and value each other
• We operate with good intentions, confidence, and humility
• We welcome diversity of background, thought, and experience

Overview
The New Games Division (NGD) is a new division at Big Fish Games and our goal is to keep producing hit games in the casual mobile space. We have built a robust game development process and we are looking for a passionate Director, Engineering to support our partner game developers, create internal game prototypes and develop shared technologies in collaboration with the BFG central technology group.
In this role, you will act as a technical leader, developer, adviser, troubleshooter and analyst, and draw on your broad knowledge of software development to assist with a wide variety of technical challenges. A flexible mindset, good communication skills and a willingness to collaborate with other directors and engineers are also important. You will work with game producers, product managers and the external game development team to help all these groups overcome technical obstacles and drive the game to greater success.
What You'll Do

• Roll up your sleeves and implement game prototypes with game designers, artists, engineers and product managers to answer game design questions and explore new fun gameplay.
• Proactively find solutions for problems and obstacles. Help improve our processes and documentation. Identify authoring tools, validation tools, and automation tools to raise efficiency.
• Provide technical advice and help define the strategy and direction of the New Games Division as a member of its leadership team.
• Become familiar with a new game’s codebase in order to offer technical advice or help troubleshoot issues.
• Manage, guide and grow engineers within the New Games Division.
• Become an expert on Big Fish Games technical products, services, and best practices so our solutions provide maximal value to our game teams.
• Evaluate technologies, games, and developers for success.
• Guide our partner developers for a better technical direction and help integrate, update and leverage the capabilities of 3rd party tools & services that are integral to the game.
• Troubleshoot and firefight short term issues as they crop up. Identify, optimize and mitigate long running performance and stability issues.
• Define technical guidelines and best practices with CTO and execute them in all games.
• Effectively communicate with technical and non-technical parties to ensure understanding of priorities, services, features and business requirements.
• Collaborate with BFG Central Technology Group to deliver game services, shared technologies and tools to game projects to increase productivity and efficiency.
• Be flexible in order to adapt to the shifting priorities that come from working with multiple game projects.

What We're Looking For

• Passionate about understanding complex technical systems and proficient in navigating them.
• Can estimate effort and establish timelines for projects as well as communicating associated risks
• Good understanding of the platform (Android/iOS) and regulatory requirements.
• Comfortable working in an adaptable and changing environment.
• Enjoys collaborating with team members and working with people.
• Familiarity with the Scrum/Agile methodology.
• Extensive experience in mobile game development as a hands-on engineer using Unity/C#, and willingness to work collaboratively with engineers to develop game prototypes.
• Experience working on casual mobile games and understand how they work, the game’s performance lifecycle, and how they can be grown.
• Willing to roll up your sleeves to get the job done.
• Proven ability to grow a team, whether by sourcing a development partner, hiring directly, or through acquisition.
• Service-oriented attitude and confidence in your skills that allows you to build and maintain trust with our game teams.
• Experience leading a team of developers, either internally or externally.
• Patient explaining context when suggesting improvements and rationale when justifying the ‘Why’ behind a business requirement, especially to non-technical stakeholders.
• Strong experience in server-side development.
• At least 10 years of experience in the game industry.
• Successfully built and released a mobile game, from concept to release and understand the details as well as the bigger picture.
• Excellent interpersonal and communication skills, both verbal and written.

Benefits And Beyond
Employees constantly rate Big Fish Games highly for its leadership, flexibility, well-being, diversity and inclusion through quarterly surveys.

• Community & Fun: Company social events, employee impact groups, company swag, volunteer opportunities
• Health & More: Medical, dental, vision, life, disability, Teladoc services, employee assistance program (EAP)
• Wellbeing: Wellness fairs, weekly virtual workout classes, 24/7 access to mental health and wellbeing support, free therapy and counseling sessions for you and your family
• Wealth Care: 401k matching, flexible spending account (FSA), employee discounts, employee stock purchase program
• FLEX-Forward work environment: Customize the when, where, and how you work while delivering goals
• Learn & Grow: LinkedIn Learning subscription, mentorship program, career development, individual development plans, educational assistance on job-related professional development
• Work-Life: Wellness Friday (half-days), paid time off, parental leave, flexible work policy, studio holiday closure (Enjoy the week between Christmas and New Year!)

About Big Fish
Building upon our 20-year legacy as a leader in the biggest gaming categories in the world, we are innovating and developing new products within the casual space to add to our extensive portfolio. Big Fish is dedicated to delivering amazing experiences for players to connect, compete and discover play, anywhere and on any device. This means games for broad global audiences in genres that are easy to learn, and difficult to master. Be a part of the team from the start.
Big Fish is part of Pixel United, the free-to-play, mobile-first video games business of Aristocrat Leisure Ltd (ASX: ALL)!
Big Fish Games is an equal opportunity employer. We bring unique talents together to build something special that’s why we welcome and encourage diversity in the workplace regardless of race, gender, religion, age, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability or veteran status.
Location
Montreal
Job family
Software
Contract Type
Regular
Time Type
Full time
Company
Big Fish Games R0013931