Lead Full Stack Engineer

Location: Cambridge, UK (remote-friendly within the UK) with occasional travel to the office once per quarter.

The Central Technology organisation is responsible for the core technologies that power RuneScape Franchises including Old School RuneScape and RuneScape 3, delivering game technology, scalable implementations and tools that accelerate every product and every team to deliver for our players.

The Player Gateway team is responsible for enhancing and optimising the player experience of Jagex titles from the initial visit to engaging directly with the game for new, returning, or active players.

As a Lead Engineer will champion Jagex technology principles by guiding and supporting engineers through mentoring, coaching, goal setting, and development planning. As Lead engineer you will work with product and production teams as primary technical contact.

What you\’ll be doing:

Technical Duties

• Contributes to and supports all areas of the Software Development Lifecycle, including writing secure-by-design, production ready code, automated testing, code review and deployment, ensuring all aspects meet the high standards, principles and practices for their team
• Works with other Lead Engineers, Principal Engineers and the Technical Director to set code, automation, API, cloud infrastructure and system design standards and principles for the department
• Ensures that solutions meet technical requirements and product needs, matching team capabilities, evaluating off the shelf and in-house built solutions which best fit the needs of the business
• Takes technical accountability for the team’s output and its continued excellence in all technology areas
• Leads the delivery of complex engineering projects for their team – collaborating with other Leads, architects and principal engineers across the business
• Support the engineers in breaking down their work into sensible, manageable and easily estimated stories that can deliver product value within the sprint
• Delivers solutions to complex engineering challenges and incidents for their team
• Proactively identifies opportunities to improve our systems, services, and processes. Effectively communicates these, collaborating across teams to deliver improvement
• Proactively contributes to Discipline Crafts and support their continued improvement
• Provides On-Call support to troubleshoot and resolve out-of-hours production issues

Management Duties

• Acts as a role model for engineers, living the company values and behaviours
• Recruitment responsibilities
• Responsible for the growth of engineers through coaching, mentoring, setting personal and professional objectives and providing constructive, candid feedback to those they manage
• Perform skill gap analyses and facilitate training mechanisms to ensure engineers have both the technical and soft skills required
• Facilitate the procurement of new software and tooling where needed
• Work as part of the leadership team, ensuring the right balance between product, production and engineering to deliver on business value within your team

What we\’re looking for:

• Extensive experience leading engineering teams to deliver games or large software projects
• Proficiency in Java and understanding of its ecosystem with experience in Java backend development
• Demonstrable ability to mentor others and contributing to the team’s continuous improvement by sharing and refining best practices
• Proven experience working closely with non-engineering stakeholders and communicating technical solutions in an easy-to-understand manner
• Proven ability to design complex systems using appropriate patterns, solving architectural and system-level problems to high quality standards
• Experience working on established code bases
• Analytical mind and strong problem-solving skills
• Solid debugging, profiling and code optimization skills
• Good knowledge of version control and CI/CD systems e.g. GIT, Perforce, Bamboo

What we offer:

When you join Jagex you can look forward to a generous Perks & Benefits package including:

• Private Healthcare, including Dental Plan.
• Minimum 6% Pension contributions.
• Employee Assistance Programme & onsite Counselling.
• Life Insurance.
• Discretionary annual performance bonus.
• Enhanced family leave policies from day 1.
• Flexible working hours.
• 25 days annual leave + Bank holidays & the option to buy/sell holidays + so much more!

About Jagex:

Jagex is a leader in developing and publishing deep, engaging online games that connect millions of players worldwide. Best known for the RuneScape franchise, which includes two of the world’s longest running and most successful MMORPGs, in Old School Runescape and Runescape, and the open-world survival crafting game, Runescape: Dragonwilds; we have proven success in delivering immersive Forever Games and fostering strong player communities.

We strive to foster an inclusive workplace built on trust, autonomy, and a shared passion for creating forever games.
Our values guide everything we do:We Embrace Fellowshipby collaborating and sharing openly.We Hone our Craftby always learning and improving; weHonour our Vowsby being honest and transparent; we are ourCustomers’ Heroesby striving to understand our team & player needs, and weSeize The Dayby making the most of every opportunity.

With over two decades of experience, and over 400 people in our team, we continue to innovate in live game development, leveraging data-driven insights, and a commitment to player-first game design. We have a diverse and talented team where creativity, collaboration, and community-driven game development drives everything we do.

As part of Jagex, you’ll have the opportunity to work on a globally successful franchise, contribute to exciting new projects, and be part of a company that hugely values both our employees and our players.

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