Senior Software Engineer II, Performance (UE5)

Senior Software Engineer II, Performance (UE5)

At Blizzard, we craft genre-defining games and legendary worlds for all to share. Through unparalleled creativity and storytelling, we create immersive universes and iconic characters that are beloved across platforms, borders, backgrounds, and generations—only made possible by building a work environment that nurtures the artistry of game development and unleashes the aspirations of our people.

We are looking for a Senior Software Engineer II, Performance to help craft a new, unannounced game for Blizzard. As a key technical leader within engineering, you will be responsible for improving performance, reliability, and multi-platform readiness across our runtime and supporting systems within the Unreal 5 Engine codebase. You will partner closely with engineers across gameplay, engine, and tools to identify bottlenecks, build scalable solutions, and ensure we hit quality and performance targets across PC and consoles. You will also partner with design, art, and tech art members to evaluate the work created for the game and collaborate to ensure it meets acceptable performance standards.

This role is anticipated to be a hybrid work position, with some work on-site and some work from home. The potential home studio for this role is Irvine, CA.

Responsibilities

Priorities can often change in a fast-paced environment like ours, so this role includes, but is not limited to, the following responsibilities:

• Lead performance strategy and execution across UE5 runtime systems, identifying risks early and driving measurable improvements.
• Profile, diagnose, and optimize CPU, GPU, memory, and streaming performance to meet release-quality targets.
• Partner with engineers and technical leaders across teams to establish performance budgets, guardrails, and regression prevention practices.
• Design and implement performance tooling, reporting, and automation that improve developer workflows and increase iteration speed.
• Improve platform readiness across PC, Xbox, and/or PlayStation by addressing platform-specific constraints and performance characteristics.
• Define and promote best practices for observability, monitoring, and debugging of complex systems in development and production-like environments.
• Communicate performance findings and recommendations clearly through concise documentation and cross-team alignment.
• Provide technical mentorship to team members through design reviews, code reviews, and coaching that elevates engineering quality and shared standards.

Experience

• 12 years of professional software engineering experience, or an equivalent combination of education and experience.
• Proven experience delivering performance improvements in large, complex codebases.
• Experience shipping at least one major Unreal Engine based title with responsibility for performance, platform readiness, or systems reliability.
• Demonstrated ability to lead technical initiatives across multiple teams without direct people management responsibility.
• Experience developing for PC and consoles (PC, Xbox, and/or PlayStation).

Knowledge and Skills

• Strong proficiency in C++ and familiarity with C#.
• Deep understanding of profiling, optimization, and debugging techniques across CPU, GPU, memory, and I/O.
• Strong understanding of performance measurement, regression detection, and continuous improvement practices.
• Experience building or improving tools and automation that support performance validation, testing, and diagnostics.
• Familiarity with observability and monitoring practices for scalable systems, including logging, metrics, and tracing fundamentals.
• Excellent communication skills, with the ability to translate complex technical findings into actionable next steps for multiple disciplines.

Key Attributes

• A team-oriented approach to your work, with a focus on partnership and cross-discipline collaboration.
• Strong ownership mentality and accountability for long-term system health and performance outcomes.
• Proactive problem-solving mindset with comfort navigating changing priorities and complex technical tradeoffs.
• High standards for engineering quality, maintainability, and practical solutions.

Extra Points

• Familiarity with deployment systems and CI/CD practices, including infrastructure automation and release workflows.
• Passion for games and game development.