Engineering director Jobs in Irvine, CA

Senior Director of Engineering

Second Dinner is an award-winning independent game development studio. Including Mobile Game of the Year from both The Game Awards and DICE, Best Strategy Game from IGN, and the prestigious Apple Design Award for Innovation. These accolades are a testament to the amazing folks who make up our studio. You could be the next addition to our award-winning team! For our debut game, MARVEL SNAP, we've partnered with Marvel. We've got other SUPER FUN (but still secret) projects in the works and this role is a chance to be a part of something new, and special at the company. As a remote-first company, we value diversity and encourage applications from everyone who can bring something unique to the table.

Your Role

As a Senior Director of Engineering, you will report to the GM of MARVEL SNAP and your primary responsibility will be to tackle the technical challenges facing the game team. You'll oversee a large team of talented MARVEL SNAP engineers to develop and improve tools and systems. Your work will empower the entire team to provide our players with delightful and robust gameplay experiences. You are accountable for ensuring that today's engineering decisions enable tomorrow's innovation. If you would like to play an integral part in shaping the technology foundations that will support our team and our players for years to come, APPLY!

What You'll Do:

• Ensure the best outcomes from our 20-person engineering group and 6-person QA team
• Act as technical visionholder for MARVEL SNAP, as we transition to long-term solutions
• Own the delivery pipeline from planning to production, remove friction and deliver quality features to players in a timely fashion
• Champion pragmatic engineering decisions: know when to build fast and when to build right
• In conjunction with Production, ensure quality output from xDev partners, evaluation, onboarding, integration, and accountability
• Define quality and deployment standards that scale across internal and xDev teams, then empower others to uphold them
• Be the kind of leader people want to work for, hold meaningful 1:1s, track growth, and build actionable career plans
• Iterate on hiring, pinch hit when the team needs you, and stay close to the code

What You'll Need:

• Proven experience shipping and operating a live-service game
• Track record of technical management of external development partners or vendors
• Add value at every level: IC engineers, external partners, production, and leadership
• Experience leading an engineering team through the ups and downs of long-term live services games
• Strong familiarity with Unity, AWS, Git, and.NET
• Comfortable both setting strategic direction and rolling up your sleeves

Nice to Have, But Not Necessary:

• Experience designing and scaling a hub-and-spoke or xDev-heavy engineering model
• Experience operating a global backend at scale
• Background in live-service game telemetry, A/B testing, or rapid iteration frameworks

The total compensation for this position includes a new hire offer base salary range of $270,000-300,000 USD + equity + comprehensive benefits + potential for discretionary performance bonuses.

An overview of the benefits and perks at Second Dinner:

• Medical, Dental, and Vision insurance plans with Second Dinner paying 100% of premiums for employees and 75% for dependents for many plans
• 401(k) contribution with no waiting period
• 16 weeks paid parental leave with no waiting period
• Home office improvement bonus
• Paid Vacation & Sick time
• Up to 10 BetterHelp sessions covered each benefits plan year
• Remote-first with core overlap hours between 10AM and 4PM PT
• Company Summer Holiday shutdown (week of July 4)
• Company Winter Holiday shutdown (Dec 25-Jan 1)
• Company Events - In-person all-hands gathering, and virtual events throughout the year

We are an equal opportunity employer that places high value on diversity and inclusion. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, color, ancestry, national origin, religion, age, disability status, sex (including pregnancy), gender, gender identity, gender expression, sexual orientation, medical condition, genetic information, marital status, military status, or veteran status. You must be legally authorized to work and reside in the United States. We do not sponsor visas or support employment outside the U.S. for this role.