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Technical Lead

At Maxis, we excel at outrageous thinking. It is the fuel that inspires the best games in the world. We are trailblazers and great storytellers. But it is not just about amazing your peers – it is about amazing yourself and our fans. Take risks. Work with dazzling minds and dare to dream big. Together, we can change the way millions play every day. The Sims 4 has an extremely unique player base, with 60% of our audience being women between the ages of 18-24. We are looking for someone with deep insights on how to create the best experience for our players.

The Sims 4 is looking to expand on providing a world-class experience for our players. As part of an initiative to provide broader coverage, we are looking to establish a distributed development team based in the EU region to complement our team in Redwood Shores CA, USA. We are looking for someone to oversee the tech planning and implementation of features/tools and to lead (and build) a team of cross-functional engineers.

Responsibilities:

• Work collaboratively with Technical Directors, Producers, Designers, Artists, and QV partners to determine technical requirements for features and systems.
• Provide cost estimates and identify technical risks and potential mitigation plans based on high-level designs.
• Help architect and develop technical solutions for features and systems.
• Do hands development and debugging of features in C++ and Python.
• Help the engineering team troubleshoot issues and provide day-to-day guidance as needed.
• Review technical designs and provide code reviews to ensure that feature work is completed to quality and to specifications.
• Work with other Sims 4 Technical Leads and Technical Directors to enforce coding standards and engineering best practices, monitor the quality and performance of the game, and make improvements to solve project-wide problems.
• Coach and mentor the engineering team.
• Facilitate communication between engineering teams at different locations.

Qualifications:

Please note that you do not need to qualify for all requirements to be considered. We encourage you to apply if you can meet most of the requirements and are comfortable opening a dialog to be considered.

• Bachelor/Master’s degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, or related field.
• 8+ years of software development experience in games or a related field.
• Experience with C++, object-oriented design, and implementation.
• Experience architecting and implementing complex game subsystems.
• Experience with a AAA data-driven game engine, such as a commercial engine like Unreal/Unity or an internal one.
• Excellent debugging skills and experience using tools to help debug.
• Ability to work with internally and externally developed code in a collaborative fashion.
• Strong communication skills.

Pluses:

• Experience leading engineering teams and guiding other engineers through the development process.
• Experience working with multiple areas within the game tech stack.
• Experience developing & shipping large-scale AAA games or equivalent products.
• Intermediate-level knowledge of Python.
• Mac & Gen 4 console development experience.
• Experience with Live Services.