At a Glance
- Tasks: Lead teams to ensure reliability and sustainability of PlayStation Store platforms.
- Company: Join Sony Interactive Entertainment, the powerhouse behind PlayStation.
- Benefits: Competitive salary, dynamic work environment, and opportunities for growth.
- Other info: Be part of a culture that values innovation and excellence.
- Why this job: Make a real impact on millions of players worldwide with cutting-edge technology.
- Qualifications: Experience in software engineering and managing high-performing teams required.
The predicted salary is between 63000 - 77000 £ per year.
Why Sony Interactive Entertainment?
Sony Interactive Entertainment isn’t just the Best Place to Play — it’s also the Best Place to Work.
Sony Interactive Entertainment (SIE) is the company behind the Play Station brand.
As a subsidiary of Sony Group Corporation, we’re part of a proud legacy of innovation and excellence.
SIE is a dynamic technology company, delivering cutting-edge hardware and network services to more than 100 million people and an entertainment leader, home to some of the most beloved and recognizable intellectual properties (IP) in the world.
Our role at SIE is to create and nurture the experiences under the Play Station brand, a name synonymous with entertainment excellence and creativity.
Role Overview
The Play Station Store and Commerce platform sits at the center of how millions of players around the world discover, purchase, and engage with Play Station content.
Our Technical Operations organization is responsible for ensuring these experiences remain highly available, resilient, performant, and ready to support some of the largest entertainment launches in the world.
We are looking for a Senior Engineering Manager to lead our Discover Operations (Site Reliability Engineering - SRE) and Sustainability Engineering teams, combining SRE, operational excellence, and full-stack software engineering to improve both the day-to-day reliability and long-term sustainability of the Play Station platform.
As Senior Engineering Manager, you will lead a team of Site Reliability and Software Engineers responsible for the reliability, resilience, and sustainability of critical services supporting the Discover experience across the Play Station ecosystem and beyond.
Your teams will partner closely with product engineering, architecture, security, program management, and other technical operations teams to ensure our platforms are prepared for both everyday customer demand and major global business events.
This role goes beyond traditional production operations.
You will help evolve how we operate our platforms, moving from reactive support toward proactive, data-driven, and increasingly adaptive operations leaning into the latest technology trends such as machine learning and AI.
You will also lead our Sustainability Engineering efforts, leading full-stack development teams to modernize and sustain critical customer experiences across Play Station platforms while reducing operational complexity, technical debt, and long-term risk.
What You’ll Be Doing
- Own the reliability, availability, performance, and operational health of customer-facing Play Station Store platforms, including Catalog, Entitlements, Search, and Storefront experiences.
- Establish and evolve SRE practices across observability, SLOs, capacity, resilience, automation, incident management, and operational readiness.
- Partner with development teams to build reliability and operability into the software lifecycle, improving production readiness and reducing operational risk.
- Lead operational readiness for major launches, seasonal events, and high-traffic business moments, ensuring platforms are tested, scaled, monitored, and prepared.
- Drive continuous improvement through incident learning, automation, and systemic remediation, reducing operational toil and improving platform resilience.
- Lead Sustainability Engineering and modernization efforts, addressing technical debt, lifecycle management, and legacy technology retirement.
- Leverage telemetry, operational data, and emerging AI/ML capabilities to identify risk and advance proactive, adaptive operations.
- Develop engineering roadmaps balancing immediate operational needs with long-term reliability, modernization, and sustainability investments.
- Recruit, mentor, and develop engineers and engineering leaders while fostering a culture of ownership, technical excellence, continuous improvement, and customer focus.
- Build strong cross-functional partnerships and clearly communicate technical health, risk, priorities, and investment needs to engineering and senior leadership.
What We’re Looking For
- Significant experience leading software engineering, SRE, production engineering, or technical operations teams supporting large-scale distributed systems.
- Demonstrated experience managing and developing high-performing teams, including line managers, senior, and staff-level engineers.
- Strong understanding of SRE principles and practices, including availability, SLOs/SLIs, observability, incident management, capacity planning, resilience, and automation.
- Experience operating high-volume, customer-facing platforms where reliability and performance directly impact customers and the business.
- Strong technical background with the ability to engage with engineers and architects on system design, scalability, reliability, and operational tradeoffs.
- Experience partnering with software development teams to improve operability, production readiness, and resilience throughout the software lifecycle.
- Proven ability to lead through complex production incidents and drive systemic improvements through post-incident learning.
- Experience developing and executing multi-quarter technical strategies and engineering roadmaps.
- Strong communication and cross-functional leadership skills, with the ability to translate complex technical issues and risks for technical and executive audiences.
- Experience with cloud-native technologies such as AWS, Kubernetes, Terraform, CI/CD platforms, and modern observability tooling.
Nice to Have
- Experience supporting commerce, e-commerce, payments, digital storefronts, or large-scale consumer platforms.
- Experience leading modernization or Sustainability Engineering programs for mature or legacy platforms.
- Experience designing or operating multi-region, highly available distributed architectures.
- Familiarity with security, compliance, vulnerability, and operational risk management at scale.
- Experience applying AI/ML, intelligent automation, or advanced analytics to operational e
Senior Manager, Service Reliability/Software Engineering employer: Sony
At Sony Interactive Entertainment, we pride ourselves on being not just the Best Place to Play, but also the Best Place to Work. Located in the vibrant city of London, our hybrid work culture fosters innovation and collaboration, offering employees the chance to engage with cutting-edge technology while supporting a global security program. With a commitment to employee growth, diversity, and a dynamic work environment, we provide unique opportunities for professional development and meaningful contributions to the PlayStation brand.
StudySmarter Expert Advice🤫
We think this is how you could land Senior Manager, Service Reliability/Software Engineering
✨Join Local Tech Meetups
Get out there and mingle with fellow developers by joining local tech meetups. It’s a fantastic way to meet people who might be working at Sony or know someone who does. Plus, you can pick up some trendy tech skills and trends while you're at it!
✨Contribute to Open Source Projects
Show off your coding chops by jumping into open-source projects. Not only does this give you practical experience, but it also gets you noticed in the dev community. You'll create a killer portfolio that speaks volumes about your skills to Sony.
✨Tap into Online Developer Communities
Don’t underestimate the power of online developer communities like GitHub, Stack Overflow, and even Reddit. Participate in discussions, share your projects, and build your visibility. We can often find opportunities through these channels that can lead to a full-time gig at companies like Sony.
✨Explore Job Boards Specifically for Tech Roles
Keep your eyes peeled on job boards that focus on tech roles. Sites like TechCareers or Stack Overflow Jobs can often have listings for companies like Sony that might not show up on broader job sites. Make it a habit to check these regularly, and don’t hesitate to apply directly through our website!
We think you need these skills to ace Senior Manager, Service Reliability/Software Engineering
Some tips for your application 🫡
Show off your coding skills:When applying for a software engineering role, it's super important to showcase your coding skills. Make sure your CV includes your tech stack, any relevant programming languages you’re comfortable with, and examples of projects you've worked on. If you have a GitHub profile, link it up! We love to see code in action.
Tailor your portfolio:For a full-time role, we’d expect to see some solid examples of your work in your portfolio. Make sure to include at least two or three projects that highlight your problem-solving skills and your ability to work with different technologies. Focus on the projects that are most relevant to the position at Sony.
Craft a killer cover letter:Your cover letter is your chance to stand out—make it personal! Explain why you want to work at Sony and how your skills align with the role. Show us your passion for software development. We dig enthusiastic candidates who understand the value of collaboration and continuous learning!
Be clear and concise:When it comes to writing your CV and cover letter, clarity is key. Avoid jargon that could confuse us and stick to simple, direct language. Highlight your achievements with quantifiable results where possible, and keep everything easy to read. A well-organised application goes a long way!
How to prepare for a job interview at Sony
✨Brush Up on Your Coding Skills
For a full-time software engineering role, it's crucial that we stay sharp with our coding abilities. Expect technical questions that might involve solving problems on the spot or discussing algorithms. Practise on platforms like LeetCode or HackerRank to get comfortable with the types of questions that often come up.
✨Know Your Tools and Frameworks
Make sure we’re well-acquainted with the tools and technologies listed in the job description. Familiarise ourselves with any specific frameworks or programming languages mentioned. If Sony uses React or Node.js, for instance, be ready to discuss how we’ve used them in previous projects or coursework.
✨Showcase Your Projects
Bring along a portfolio that highlights our best work. This could be code samples, GitHub repositories, or any side projects we’ve built. Make sure we can talk through our thought process for each project, especially the challenges we faced and how we solved them—this shows our problem-solving skills in action.
✨Prepare for Behavioural Questions
While technical skills are key, full-time positions also require cultural fit. Be ready to discuss our previous experiences and how we handle teamwork, conflict, and deadlines. Brush up on the STAR method—Situation, Task, Action, Result—to clearly articulate our past experiences when discussing how we've contributed to a team.
