Lead UI Engineer - StarCraft | Irvine, CA
Blizzard Entertainment3 days ago
Base Salary
$124k - $229k/yr
Responsibilities
- Lead the technical vision, architecture, implementation, and maintenance of game UI systems and frameworks.
- Guide UI engineers through mentorship, technical leadership, prioritization, technical reviews, and execution.
- Collaborate with designers, artists, engineers, production partners, and technical leadership to deliver player experiences and align milestones.
- Optimize UI performance, memory usage, debugging, and platform compatibility for PC, Xbox, and PlayStation.
- Drive improvements to UI pipelines, tools, workflows, accessibility, and engineering standards.
- Review designs and technical proposals, manage risks, and balance creative goals with technical requirements.
- Support a collaborative culture of learning, knowledge sharing, accountability, and professional growth.
Requirements
- 8+ years of professional software engineering experience with significant experience developing UI systems for games or interactive applications.
- Experience leading engineers, technical initiatives, or feature teams through the full development lifecycle.
- Experience managing people, programs, or multidisciplinary efforts toward business and development objectives.
- Experience shipping at least one commercially released title or large-scale interactive product.
- Strong proficiency in C++ and modern software architecture principles.
- Extensive experience building UI systems, frameworks, and tooling for game development.
- Experience integrating UI with gameplay systems, backend services, and platform features.
- Comprehensive understanding of performance optimization, memory management, and debugging practices.
- Experience with Unreal Engine, related UI technologies, and PC, Xbox, and/or PlayStation development.
- Strong collaboration, communication, ownership, and technical decision-making skills.
- Preferred experience includes leading UI teams on AAA projects, developing UI editor tooling, supporting live-service or online features, integrating telemetry or analytics, and contributing to recruiting, interviewing, or career development.
Benefits
- Hybrid work week with a mix of work-from-home and on-site days based in Irvine, California.
- Medical, dental, vision, health savings or reimbursement accounts, healthcare spending accounts, life and disability insurance, and dependent care benefits.
- 401(k) with company match, tuition reimbursement, and charitable donation matching.
- Paid holidays, vacation, sick time, floating holidays, bereavement and compassion leave, and parental leave.
- Mental health, wellbeing, fitness, free and discounted games, legal services, identity protection, rental insurance, and other voluntary benefits.
- Relocation assistance may be available when the company requires geographic relocation.
About Blizzard Entertainment
Blizzard Entertainment develops and publishes video games for PC and consoles, including World of Warcraft, Overwatch, Diablo, StarCraft, and Hearthstone, supported by Battle.net services and esports. Founded in 1991 (as Silicon & Synapse) and headquartered in Irvine, California, it operates within Activision Blizzard, which was acquired by Microsoft in 2023. Its business model spans premium games, expansions, a World of Warcraft subscription, and in-game purchases for live-service titles.