Manager, Engineering (Austin)

Who We AreAt 2K, we create some of the most iconic and culture-shaping video games in entertainment, including NBA 2K, one of the top-selling franchises in the world, and legendary titles like BioShock, Borderlands, Mafia, Sid Meier’s Civilization, and XCOM, as well as fan favorites WWE 2K, TopSpin, and PGA TOUR 2K. We build unforgettable experiences by pushing the boundaries of creativity, authenticity and innovation across every genre. Our portfolio is brought to life by some of the most influential game development studios in the world. Visual Concepts, Firaxis Games, Hangar 13, Cat Daddy Games, 31st Union, Cloud Chamber, Gearbox, HB Studios, and 2K SportsLab create world-class experiences across platforms. But what truly powers 2K is our people. We believe the best ideas come from teams that feel empowered, supported, and inspired. As an equal opportunity employer, we are committed to fostering a diverse, inclusive workplace where people are encouraged to come as they are and do their best work. What We Need The Core Technology group is responsible for identifying common problems across the company and building solutions to those problems. We fill our team with individuals who enjoy a challenge, enjoy working in a fast-paced environment, and want to take ownership and responsibility for products. If you are passionate about working in the game industry and implementing cool features for our game products, come join our team.What You’ll Do Empower and Mentor: Lead a team of engineers through consistent 1:1s, career mapping, and performance coaching to build a high-trust, high-output culture.Development Process Optimization: Own and refine the technical development process. You will help the engineering staff optimize their daily output by establishing clear standards and workflows that reduce toil and cognitive load.Modern Engineering Practices: Champion high-quality habits—including TDD, AI-augmented development, and documentation-as-code—to ensure the team builds right the first time.Technical Quality & Mentorship: Cultivate a culture of rigorous, constructive feedback through code reviews and design discussions, ensuring these are vehicles for mentorship rather than just rubber-stamping.Drive Engineering Initiatives: Lead internal-first projects like tech debt reduction, architectural refactors, and API standardization that keep the codebase healthy and scalable.Low-Level Technical Oversight: Stay close to the metal by participating in architecture reviews and coaching engineers to ensure the team maintains high standards of performance and code quality.What Will Make You A Great Fit Leadership Experience: 3+ years managing/leading engineering teams, with a track record of fostering psychological safety and technical growth.Backend Engineering Foundation: A background building backend services in modern languages (Java or Golang), with the depth to give meaningful feedback and mentorship on microservice architecture, API design, and implementation on a large scale platform.The Paved Road Mindset: Proven ability to implement technical standards and development workflows that increase team velocity without adding bureaucratic red tape.Cross-Functional Partnership: Experience working closely with Product and Program teams to turn complex technical challenges into prioritized, well-scoped solutions that bring real value to our customers.Strategic Prioritization: The ability to balance the feature demands of the business with the engineering-first needs of a healthy, modern codebase.Bonus ItemsGaming Domain Interest: A passion for player-centric technology, ideally complemented by experience building online services or backend platforms for game development.Architecture & Scale: Hands-on experience with low-latency systems and massive-scale backend online services infrastructure.Cloud Platform Fluency: Hands-on experience with public cloud environments (AWS, GCP) and a working knowledge of their core services and how to apply them effectively.As an equal opportunity employer, we are committed to ensuring that qualified individuals with disabilities are provided reasonable accommodation to participate in the job application or interview process, to perform their essential job functions, and to receive other benefits and privileges of employment. Please contact us if you need reasonable accommodation. Please note that 2K Games and its studios never uses instant messaging apps or personal email accounts to contact prospective employees or conduct interviews and when emailing, only use 2K.com accounts. #LI-Hybrid