Senior Director, Central Technology

At ArenaNet, we’ve always believed that games are art. They have the power to communicate ideas and tell stories. They can change the way we think, reflect our cultures, and move us. As the developer of the award-winning Guild Wars game series, we’re proud to share our passion for the online worlds we’ve created with over 21 million players worldwide.

ArenaNet develops and publishes games for every kind of person, which means our games need to be built by every kind of person. We believe the best experiences come from working together, celebrating differences, and helping each of our team members shine.

We are looking for a Senior Director, Central Technology, to document, update and/or define and execute the central technology strategy that enables our teams to build, launch, and operate world-class games.

In this role, you will oversee the teams and platforms that power game development and live operations across the studio, including platform, security, network operations, build systems, web systems, billing, data engineering, and analytics. Maintain our quality standard of targeting 99.999% uptime and enabling rapid deployment via CI/CD pipelines.

This is a hands-on leadership role for someone who can operate at both the strategic and technical level. You’ll partner closely with studio leadership and game teams to understand their needs, translate those needs into a cohesive technology roadmap, and ensure our teams have scalable, reliable, and secure technology that helps them move faster without sacrificing quality.

The ideal candidate is a strong technical and people leader who can set long-term direction while staying close enough to the technology to make thoughtful decisions around architecture, infrastructure, tooling, and emerging technologies.

WHAT YOU’LL DO

• Define and execute the studio’s central technology roadmap, aligning technology priorities and investments with game development needs and broader studio goals.

• Act as a key technology partner to game technology directors and their teams to understand their development needs and deliver technology, platforms, and services that help them build and operate games more effectively.

• Manage 6–8 senior technical staff and a broader organization of approximately 20–25 employees across platform, security, network operations, build systems, web systems, billing, data engineering, and analytics.

• Maintain, document, and/or establish technical standards and best practices that improve reliability, maintainability, security, automation, and development efficiency across the studio

• Evaluate emerging technologies, including cloud infrastructure, automation, and developer tooling, and determine where they can meaningfully improve how our teams work.

• Ensure our technology organization can effectively support the different needs of teams developing new games and teams operating large-scale live services.

• Partner with studio leadership to establish and manage technology budgets, prioritize investments, and negotiate major technology agreements, licensing deals, and vendor partnerships.

• Build, mentor, and develop a high-performing team while creating an environment of accountability, collaboration, and continuous growth.

WHAT YOU’LL NEED TO BE SUCCESSFUL

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or an equivalent combination of education, training, and experience. A Master’s degree is a plus.

• 12+ years of experience in technology, engineering, infrastructure, platform engineering, online services, or related technical disciplines.

• 8+ years of people management experience, including experience leading senior technical staff and multidisciplinary technology teams.

• Experience supporting AAA game development and/or large-scale live-service games.

• Deep understanding of the technology needs associated with both game development and operating massive live services.

• Demonstrated experience defining and executing technology strategy and roadmaps.

• Strong technical understanding of areas such as cloud infrastructure, platform engineering, developer tooling, build systems, automation, security, data engineering, and live operations.

• Experience building scalable, reliable, and secure platforms and services that improve developer productivity.

• Demonstrated ability to improve developer productivity and enable teams to move faster without sacrificing quality, stability, or security.

• Strong understanding of both development and operational needs across the lifecycle of a game.

• Ability to balance innovation with operational excellence and make sound decisions about when to build, adopt, reuse, or evolve technology.

• Experience managing technology budgets, investments, vendors, and licensing or technology agreements.

• Strong analytical and decision-making skills with the ability to use data to inform priorities and investments.

• Excellent communication and leadership skills with the ability to build strong partnerships across technical, creative, production, and executive teams.

This role is remote-friendly, but we are currently prioritizing candidates who are local to the Bellevue, WA area and open to occasional onsite collaboration.

Applications will be accepted until Tuesday, September 8th at 10am PT. If the deadline is extended, the posting will be updated accordingly. If the position is filled before this date, the posting will be removed.

Pay Range: $218,762.50 - $339,080.50

Please note that the pay range listed in this job posting reflects the full salary range for this position. While we provide this range to offer transparency, our target hiring range typically falls between the minimum and the midpoint , allowing room for growth potential within the role.

Total compensation is salary plus an annual bonus potential. When determining an offer amount, many things are taken into consideration such as qualifications, experience, internal equity, and work location. We strive to provide competitive and equitable compensation packages to all our employees.

This role is also eligible for medical, dental, vision and life insurance, short and long term disability, 401(k), flexible and dependent care spending accounts, PTO, paid holidays and parental leave.

Don’t meet every single requirement on this job post? Studies have shown that women and people of color are less likely to apply to jobs unless they meet every single qualification. At ArenaNet, we believe diversity in culture, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, and backgrounds make us a better team – we celebrate it. So, if you’re excited about this role, but your experience doesn’t align perfectly with every qualification listed, we encourage you to apply anyway. You may be just the right candidate for this or other roles.