The Senior Director of Technology for Disney Interactive (DI) Mobile Mid-Core Games Studios will be responsible for leading and managing the development of all mid-core Marvel and Star Wars mobile games internally developed at multiple locations (Palo Alto, CA and Bellevue, WA), and the horizontal platform technologies, engines, services, and tools needed to support the systems for our mobile mid-core games. He/she will evaluate internal and external technology solutions to create a robust mobile game development engine for DI Mid-Core Games Studios. The Sr. Director of Technology will partner with the Creative (art and game design) and Production Leads of each game team, and will be responsible for developing the product and technology roadmaps, building the development teams, and executing the production of the various games releases and live updates. This role will also require frequent and good executive communication. He/she shall dual report to the VP of Technology for DI Games and the VP & General Manager of the Mid-Core Games business line. He/she will be responsible for delivering innovation, quality, engineering excellence and best practices, and ensuring that the technology plan is developed and grown in accordance with the Mid-Core Games strategy and delivered on time and on budget.
Responsibilities
Set and drive strategic technology direction, technology roadmap, goals and priorities for the mid-core studios and development teams.
Research, recommend and implement new tools, techniques and best engineering practices and procedures for the studio teams
Meet regularly, manage, develop, mentor and inspire key software engineers, engineering managers, and technical leads across all locations, to meet business objectives and strengthen the various engineering teams
Invest in, nurture, and grow over time the engineering and technical leadership strengths across all mid-core locations
Assess engineering skills sets across all locations, identify critical technical skills and roles gaps, redeploy existing tech talent wherever possible, and hire new talent externally to close any found gaps to support product and technology priorities
Continuously recruit and retain world-class engineering talent. Continuously support lateral and vertical career mobility of our top engineering talent to increase retention and engagement
Drive product engineering delivery for all key mid-core games, with a laser-focused attention on quality, performance, and manageable technical debt
Ensure all projects teams are properly resourced with the right engineers and skills sets
Define key engineering goals and performance indicators, and lead the teams execution to meet those goals
Lead the vision and define the architecture of the future tech stack for mid-core games, including defining a mid-core platform/engine strategy, and staff it for success in its execution
Ensure that the right technologies, tools, processes and resources are in place for all mid-core games’ live operations support post launch
Build strong relationships between mid-core engineering and other technical functional groups within DI, such as QA, SQE, Build and Deploy, Tech Ops, Information Security, Architecture and Central Technology teams
Build strong relationships between engineering managers and technical leads with mid-core Production, Game Design, UI/UX, Art, and Project Management leads
Embrace and implement best engineering practices across all games teams in the areas of technical design and architecture, development process and workflows, coding practices and reviews, tests automation, continuous integration and deployment, tools, etc. When gaps exist, come up with remediation plans with committed timelines, and follow-through executions
Believe in iterating quickly, being agile, failing fast, and learning from failures
Build a thriving engineering culture cross-studios and cross-teams, based on open communication and a culture of sharing and innovation between the mid-core games teams, and with other DI games and technology teams within the larger Disney organization.
Set and deliver against milestones and provide updates to the executive staff on a regular basis
Communicate transparently across all levels of the organization to ensure alignment on goals.
Desired Skills and Experience
Basic Qualifications
Passionate about and experienced with software technologies applicable to consumer media and game applications
10+ years of software development including experience with full stack development, building consumer applications using C/C++, Obj-C, C# or Java
5+ years experience in mobile technology preferred
5+ years experience in gaming development (mobile and/or console preferred)
5+ years managing software game developers, engineering managers and technical leads
3+ years managing software operations as a live service
3+ years experience managing multi-location distributed engineering teams
3+ years experience managing an engineering organization of 50 engineers or more
As needed, comfortable to occasionally dive into coding and/or debugging components of the client, server or platforms stacks
Strong preference for experience building and deploying iOS and Android applications
Knowledgeable in new and emerging technologies
Knowledge of game design and development tools
Experience with game engines and tools such as Unity3D (preferred) or Unreal Engine
Experience developing server stacks operating in public cloud IaaS or PaaS, such as AWS, Azure, or Google Cloud Platform
Has practiced DevOps or NoOps methodologies such as CI/CD using full build, test and deploy automation tools and workflows
At least one Android/iOS Game Application published in the App Store, strongly preferred
Proven ability to lead internal teams with excellent management, planning, and problem-solving skills.
Proven ability to manage and deliver against expectations for senior management
Proven ability to work in a complex, matrix organization and successfully deliver results
Demonstrated ability to innovate and iterate quickly in a large, complex and matrix organization
Required Education
Bachelors Degree (Masters preferred) in Engineering and Computer Science, or equivalent industry experience
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