Engineering Lead (Gamedev)

TL;DR

Engineering Lead (Java/Gamedev): Leading engineering for the Empire MMO strategy franchise, overseeing both backend and frontend development with an accent on high-throughput Java services and agentic AI workflows. Focus on designing resilient distributed systems, mentoring engineers, and integrating AI agents to multiply team throughput.

Location: Remote (Must be available in German time zone CET/CEST)

Company

A game studio with over 200 million registered players and €1B+ in lifetime revenue, specializing in high-scale MMO strategy games.

What you will do

• Lead engineering across backend and frontend, setting technical direction and owning end-to-end delivery.
• Design and operate high-throughput, low-latency Java services on AWS, K8s, and Terraform.
• Oversee game frontend architecture (HTML5, Adobe AIR/Unity) and ensure coherence with the backend.
• Define and implement agentic engineering practices, orchestrating AI agents to increase development throughput.
• Mentor the team through architectural reviews and guidance to raise technical standards.
• Own CI/CD, observability, and on-call responsibilities for shipped features.

Requirements

• 6+ years of expert-level experience with backend Java, distributed systems, and SQL optimization.
• Deep proficiency in AWS and cloud-native stack (K8s, Docker, Terraform).
• Proven experience leading engineers and accountability for team output.
• Ability to guide frontend/game-client architecture (Adobe AIR/Unity).
• Availability in German time zone (CET/CEST).
• Excellent written English proficiency.

Nice to have

• Hands-on experience with Adobe AIR or Unity.
• Background in gaming backends (matchmaking, inventories, economy services).
• Experience with event-driven architectures (Kafka, Kinesis, SQS/SNS).
• Published work or OSS contributions regarding agentic workflows.

Culture & Benefits

• AI-first approach with full autonomy over the AI stack and use of tools like Claude Code.
• Hybrid leadership role where you continue to build and code while leading.
• Opportunity to work on a flagship franchise with millions of active players.
• Immediate feedback loop where engineering decisions impact metrics daily.

Hiring process

• Technical evaluation focusing on agentic workflows, including specs, prompts, and implementation.
• Leadership discussion on growing engineers and making hard calls under ambiguity.
• Review of delivery experience and translating business requirements into software.