Technical Director | Riyadh Studio

About Sandsoft:

Sandsoft was formed by industry leaders from international video games publishers and local talent with the core ambition to help develop the gaming ecosystem across MENA, modernize the region and to take MENA from an emerging market to a global market leader. Sandsoft has offices in Saudi Arabia, Spain, Finland and China.

Sandsoft is looking for talented individuals who share the same drive and vision. With rapid growth plans the team are recruiting for a number of roles.

About Riyadh Studio:

At Sandsoft, we do things differently.

Our Background. We are a new, dynamic games company based in Saudi Arabia focused on publishing, developing & investing in high quality, core mobile Free to Play and Play & Earn game experiences and studios across the world. Our seasoned team is composed of passionate game makers with vast experience in developing, publishing and leading some of the most highly successful game franchises ever released including FIFA, Candy Crush, Need for Speed, Angry Birds, World of Tanks and more. And we are backed by the resources of one of the largest, most successful and prestigious corporations in the Middle East (Ajlan &Bros).

We Value Independence. We create the best possible, small teams we call ‘Tribes’ and give them the freedom and independence to work together in pursuit of creating the highest quality games with high reliability and competition at the heart of the experience. Each Tribe has the freedom to pursue this goal as they see fit. It’s up to them to decide what is best for Sandsoft and for our players.

We Defer to Trust. We trust each other, even when we disagree. In this environment, you will work with your colleagues who will trust you to do what makes sense and give you the autonomy to do what is right for Sandsoft as only our game teams can make the decision to launch or shut down their project.

Everyone is a Game Maker. Everybody in our development team is first and foremost, a Game Maker and you will be no different. We encourage our people to use their talents where they have the most impact. We ask and give feedback proactively to inform our decisions. So while you are a master of your own discipline, you are also a key stakeholder and your role and voice is critical when it comes to concepting and designing Games.

About the role:

As a Technical Director, you will be a part of the Management Team at Sandsoft’s Riyadh Studio. Here you will have the opportunity to work on ambitious prototypes and grand ideas. You are a natural Influencer who enables and inspires game developers to do the best possible games for our players. You are a seasoned technologist who can dive deep and hold your own with senior developers building scalable solutions. As a talented and passionate individual, you want to solve challenging problems and make a significant impact working with our game teams to help steer and guide technical vision, strategy and development from ideation through to live service.

About the responsibilities:

• Set and adapt product(s) technical vision and technical roadmap across our several studio game teams.
  
• Identifying technical opportunities within the studio and through external vendors to innovate and / or become more efficient.
  
• Build, enhance, maintain new & existing functionality for our games (game platform, game engine, and client).
  
• Establish engineering best practices that allow the team to achieve the assigned projects, supervise and participate-in all projects from staffing, technology/tools choices, risks evaluation, dependencies with other projects to ensure the best quality is achieved.
  
• Write and develop robust maintainable high and low level code to extend engine (Unity/Unreal) functionality.
  
• Architect and participate in the implementation of non game specific systems used by content creators (extensions to engines, tools, build systems, pipeline improvements)
  
• Prototyping to support products, tools and processes.
  
• Manage people & career development for leads, ensuring there is craft leadership for the wider engineering team.
  

Requirements:

• 8+ years in hands-on game software development roles.
  
• Advanced knowledge in general games programming as well as in general games development tools, processes and infrastructure.
  
• Management and leadership skills. 2+ years in software development/engineering management positions;
  
• Proven experience the production of at least 3 mobile/social titles on mobile.
  
• Skilled Engineer. Excellent programming skills, but with a director-level perspective.
  
• Deep Knowledge of the technical Pipeline and all the processes needed to make a game. Deep knowledge of software design practices including modular architecture, event-driven architecture, and software design patterns.
  
• Strong understanding of full stack development for games (Client & Server).
  
• Good communication and team-working with game developers from all disciplines.
  
• Strong performance optimization experience including the ability to assess the quality of other engineers' work.
  
• High level of emotional intelligence.
  
• Ability to make decisions based on both qualitative gut feel and quantitative reasoning.
  
• Entrepreneurial mindset with desire to be operationally hands-on.
  
• Ability to operate clearly in an ambiguous environment with strong ability to influence.
  
• Passion for games, and desire to make the best games possible.
  
• Excellent project management skills and attention to detail.
  
• Creative mindset and ability to think outside the box.
  
• High level of written and oral communication skills in English.