This job might no longer be available.

Technical Director, Unannounced Project

Technical Director, Unannounced Project

Blizzard Entertainment is seeking a talented and passionate technical director to oversee development for an unannounced project. In this role, you will foster Blizzard’s core value of “Gameplay First” as you collaborate with art, design, engineering, sound, and production to rally around a consistent vision for the experience. Your influence will span all technical subsystems—the ideal candidate will have a breadth of mastery including but not limited to game simulation, highly scalable server architecture, core engine development, tools creation, platform development, animation, UI, and artificial intelligence systems.

We are a team of passionate developers that highly values open-minded collaboration, direct feedback, and the eagerness to grab and drive game development to Blizzard quality. As the project’s technical director, you will inspire and align the team around a technical vision that results in best-in-class gameplay, art, and audio experiences. By directly managing a team of lead engineers and collaborating with project directors, you will set strategic initiatives and break down clear and achievable goals. When particularly hard problems arise, you'll draw upon the team's collective creativity to finalize a technical vision that meets the project's needs.

The ideal candidate will have proven experience with directing game development and engine development efforts for modern AAA titles. Additionally, the candidate will possess an exceptional ability to inspire large teams and pitch/evangelize ideas as part of a larger-scale creative framework. By blending your mastery of engineering, design, and creative direction, you will rally and align teams around building epic, memorable experiences.

Responsibilities:

• Define the project’s technical vision, collaborating across a diverse cross-discipline team to ensure that gameplay, core engine, tools, technical art, and platform goals are clearly defined and met.
• Act as the primary point of contact for cross-team technology development, partnering with a central-service shared game engine team and platform team to define and execute on project requirements.
• Directly manage and mentor the project’s engineering staff, including but not limited to the developers working on gameplay; core engine; graphics; AI; UI; server; platform; tools; animation; technical art; and audio engineering.
• Navigate team growth and development milestones, successfully scaling a small technical staff to meet the challenges of pre-production, production, go-to-market, and live operations phases.
• Gather and provide effective and constructive feedback to the technical staff, providing suggestions and solutions for improvement when applicable.
• Partner with design, art, engineering, and audio to create new features, systems, and tools that meet the projects needs, and ensure the coherence, efficiency, scalability, modularity, and compatibility of the technology developed by the team.
• Evaluate internal/external technology and tools with the goal of sourcing and integrating products that meet project requirements and goals.
• Author documentation and communicate best practices and technical constraints of the engine and tools stack to team members.
• Author, pitch, and maintain technical design documents that outline key project architectural decisions, milestones, and technical risks.
• Partner with technical directors and senior engineers across the organization to promote cross-team shared code initiatives and open/internal source contributions.
• Remain current on industry trends, including new game genres, new game development technology and techniques, and trending audio visual excellence.

Requirements:

• B.S. (or higher) degree in Computer Science or equivalent.
• At least ten years of AAA game programming experience; shipped multiple AAA titles.
• Three years of experience in directing video games and leading high-performing engineering teams.
• Proven experience shipping games on multiple platforms such as PC, console, and mobile.
• Mastery of modern C++ fundamentals and a breadth of experience in other modern programming languages.
• Strong data structures and algorithm skills with a firm understanding of linear algebra, statistical methods, and design patterns.
• Expert-level understanding of client-server architectures and networked gameplay.
• Proven experience shipping and maintaining highly concurrent large-scale distributed systems and global server architecture.
• Broad understanding of performance optimization techniques for a client-server architecture, including but not limited to memory management, multiple processor use, and runtime optimization.
• Demonstrated experience working with central-service platform, engine, and infrastructure teams.
• Ability to foster a strong team culture with an emphasis on Blizzard core values, especially “Gameplay First.”
• Proven ability to grow, guide, inspire, and lead growing development/engineering teams.
• Ability to direct, collaborate, and speak critically on all aspects of technical development, art, gameplay, and content creation.
• Proficient in both written and oral communication with technical and nontechnical developers.
• Extraordinary self-motivation and initiative.
• Extensive experience with games, including action, FPS, and online titles.
• A deep passion for and knowledge of Blizzard franchises.

Pluses:

• Experience with Unity, Unreal, or other development engines.
• Experience with data-driven AI systems, deep learning frameworks, and machine learning tools.
• Master’s degree or higher in CompSci, Math, or other AI-related disciplines.

Required Application Materials

• Resume
• Cover Letter which should include:
  • Why you are interested in working at Blizzard
  • What games you are currently playing

Blizzard Entertainment is a global company committed to growing our employees along with the business. We offer generous benefits and perks with an eye on providing true work/life balance. We’ve worked hard to foster an intensely collaborative and creative environment, a diverse and inclusive employee culture, and training and opportunities for professional growth. Our people are everything. Our core values are real, and our mission has never changed. We are dedicated to creating the most epic entertainment experiences ever. Join us!