ATSG is partnering with an established, profitable live-service gaming studio undergoing a major platform and AI-driven transformation initiative.

This is a rare opportunity to step into a highly strategic technical leadership role where you will help shape the future of live-service gaming, AI-enabled development workflows, and next-generation player experiences.

Our client operates successful long-running live-service titles with millions of players and is investing heavily in rebuilding and modernizing its platform architecture, engineering workflows, and AI capabilities.

We are seeking a highly technical engineering leader who combines strong architectural depth with a hands-on, AI-forward mindset.

This is not a traditional people-management-only VP Engineering role. The ideal candidate will bring systems-level thinking, strong technical judgment, and the ability to guide engineering teams through complex modernization initiatives while helping operationalize AI across development and live-service workflows.

What You’ll Be Doing

• Lead technical strategy and architectural direction across live-service game platforms and backend systems
• Drive AI-native engineering workflows and adoption across development teams
• Partner closely with product, design, and executive leadership on long-term platform modernization initiatives
• Guide infrastructure, DevOps, scalability, observability, and operational reliability initiatives
• Support the evolution of next-generation game platform architecture built on modern frameworks and tooling
• Help define AI-driven systems for personalization, automation, live operations, and content workflows
• Mentor and support Engineering Managers and senior technical contributors across multiple teams
• Contribute to strategic technical decisions involving cloud infrastructure, tooling, scalability, and platform evolution
• Help establish engineering standards, architectural best practices, and AI-assisted development processes

What We’re Looking For

• 10+ years of software engineering experience with progressive technical leadership responsibilities
• Experience leading complex engineering teams in gaming, live-service, consumer, mobile, or real-time product environments
• Strong systems architecture and platform engineering background
• Experience modernizing infrastructure, backend systems, or large-scale software platforms
• Deep interest and practical experience leveraging AI tooling, LLMs, or agentic systems within engineering workflows
• Strong understanding of cloud infrastructure, DevOps, scalability, and production systems
• Ability to operate strategically while remaining technically hands-on when needed
• Strong communication and cross-functional leadership capabilities

Preferred Backgrounds

• Unity or live-service gaming environments
• Mobile gaming or consumer-scale platforms
• Real-time systems or interactive applications
• AI-enabled product or engineering organizations
• Backend infrastructure and distributed systems
• Data pipelines, telemetry, personalization, or monetization systems

Why This Opportunity

• Profitable and stable organization
• Significant influence over platform and technical direction
• Opportunity to help define AI-first engineering practices
• Small, highly collaborative leadership environment
• Modernization and rebuild initiatives already underway
• Strong technical ownership and executive visibility

If you are interested in learning more about this opportunity, please contact ATSG for a confidential discussion.

Salary Range: $220,000 - $260,000

Advanced Technology Search Group specializes in recruiting engineering and technical talent across North America, supporting companies in sectors such as enterprise software, robotics, semiconductor, medtech, and advanced manufacturing.