Technical Director, Internal Game Studio (ISX1)

Netflix is one of the world's leading entertainment services, with over 300 million paid memberships in over 190 countries enjoying TV series, films and games across a wide variety of genres and languages. Members can play, pause and resume watching as much as they want, anytime, anywhere, and can change their plans at any time.

THE JOB

We’re seeking a visionary Technical Director to join our internal game development team, leading the technology and engineering efforts behind a wholly new, bespoke transmedia gaming experience, built natively for Netflix’s cloud-gaming platform. In this pivotal studio leadership role, you’ll own the technical strategy and execution for the project, building and inspiring a world-class engineering team to realize our ambitious vision.

The ideal candidate is a hands-on technical leader with deep expertise in Unreal Engine 5, game systems, architecture, and cloud technologies, paired with a passion for innovation and player experience. You’ll operate as a key member of our studio leads group, partnering closely with the Game Director, Creative Director, Art Director, and Executive Producer to ensure seamless alignment between product, technology, and creative goals. You’ll set the bar for engineering excellence, drive integration with Netflix’s platform technologies, and champion a culture of experimentation, learning, and collaboration.

THE TEAM

We’re a small, scrappy team with big ambitions and an obsession to deliver memorable, innovative gameplay combined with beloved IPs, served seamlessly within the Netflix streaming ecosystem. We’re looking for new teammates who care deeply about the experiences they create and the people they make them with, who are biased towards action, and are energized by the learning that comes with bold experimentation at an agile pace. As part of Netflix, we strive to hire the best and value integrity, excellence, respect, inclusion, and collaboration. Now is an incredible time to join Netflix Game Studios as we reimagine how over 300 million members experience interactive entertainment.

RESPONSIBILITIES

• Technology Visionary: Own all technical aspects of the project, from architecture and system design to development processes and technical documentation. Ensure the project’s technical direction is scalable, sustainable, and aligned with our creative vision, with a special focus on leveraging Unreal Engine 5 to its fullest potential.

• Team Builder: Hire, mentor, and lead a world-class engineering team, cultivating an environment focused on innovation, growth, and exceptional development standards.

• Execution Leader: Oversee technical execution across prototype, production, and live ops. Set and uphold the bar for code quality, performance, and reliability.

• Strategic Partner: Collaborate with studio leads to keep the project aligned with product strategy, and proactively drive course corrections when needed.

• Platform Integrator: Champion the integration of Netflix’s cloud-gaming platform technologies, ensuring our team is a front-runner for innovation within Netflix.

• Co-Dev Arbiter: Identify and evaluate potential external co-development partners, ensuring technical compatibility and smooth cooperation.

• Engineering Backstop: Serve as the final escalation point for all engineering-related challenges, troubleshooting and resolving issues to keep the team moving forward, including deep engine-layer debugging and performance profiling in Unreal.

• Process Architect: Continuously refine development processes, tools, and pipelines for optimal efficiency and scalability with a “build and play often” mentality.

• Cultural Leader: Lead by example, fostering a collaborative, inclusive, and high-performance culture within the engineering team and across the studio.

THE IDEAL CANDIDATE

• Brings 10+ years of experience developing and launching high-fidelity games, with recent, deep hands-on expertise in Unreal Engine 5 and C++. 

• Skilled at profiling and debugging at the engine layer, including diagnosing frame time and memory issues using Unreal’s tools.

• Demonstrates mastery in Unreal Engine architecture and Blueprint patterns — able to design, create, document, and enforce robust gameplay, systems, and tools solutions.

• Expert in building and maintaining modular, scalable frameworks, with hands-on experience managing world partition, level streaming pipelines, asset virtualization, shader compilation, and build/cook systems.

• Proven track record optimizing CPU, GPU, and memory footprints for constrained environments, as well as evaluating bandwidth and latency constraints to ensure performance and gameplay targets are met.

• Deep technical expertise across game architecture, gameplay systems, content pipelines, artist workflows, rendering, backend services, and cross-platform development (including Linux).

• Collaborates closely with art and design teams to balance visual fidelity and performance, and supports live service games through development, launch, and post-launch operations.

• Familiar with contemporary web technologies (JavaScript, React, etc.) and cloud environments (AWS, GCP, etc.).

• Demonstrated ability to build, lead, and scale multidisciplinary engineering teams, collaborating effectively with both technical and non-technical leaders.

• Exceptional communicator, skilled at building trust and alignment across teams and stakeholders.

• Is self-motivated, curious, and eager to pitch in wherever needed, even outside their core responsibilities.

• Thrives in fast-paced, evolving environments, navigating change with maturity, empathy, and a bias for action.

LOCATION

• Los Angeles preferred

• Will consider remote applicants who are willing to travel for work-related events and work a PST-oriented dev team schedule.

Our compensation structure consists solely of an annual salary; we do not have bonuses. You choose each year how much of your compensation you want in salary versus stock options. To determine your personal top of market compensation, we rely on market indicators and consider your specific job family, background, skills, and experience to determine your compensation in the market range. The range for this role is $220,000 - $550,000.

Netflix provides comprehensive benefits including Health Plans, Mental Health support, a 401(k) Retirement Plan with employer match, Stock Option Program, Disability Programs, Health Savings and Flexible Spending Accounts, Family-forming benefits, and Life and Serious Injury Benefits. We also offer paid leave of absence programs.  Full-time hourly employees accrue 35 days annually for paid time off to be used for vacation, holidays, and sick paid time off. Full-time salaried employees are immediately entitled to flexible time off. See more detail about our Benefits here.

Inclusion is a Netflix value and we strive to host a meaningful interview experience for all candidates. If you want an accommodation/adjustment for a disability or any other reason during the hiring process, please send a request to your recruiting partner.

We are an equal-opportunity employer and celebrate diversity, recognizing that diversity builds stronger teams. We approach diversity and inclusion seriously and thoughtfully. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, ancestry, national origin, caste, sex, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity or expression, age, disability, medical condition, pregnancy, genetic makeup, marital status, or military service.

Job is open for no less than 7 days and will be removed when the position is filled.