Senior Online Software Engineer (Technical Lead) – EA SPORTS FC

EA SPORTS; Vancouver; On-site; CAD 141,400 - 204,400; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

3 weeks vacation per year

10 days sick leave per year

Health/dental/vision coverage

Life insurance

Disability insurance

Retirement plan

Job summary

EA SPORTS in Vancouver seeks a Lead Online Software Engineer to oversee the online engineering area for EA SPORTS FC. You will manage a team of over 20 engineers and ensure the delivery of essential online systems including multiplayer and matchmaking services.

The ideal candidate will have extensive experience in software engineering and a strong understanding of online, multiplayer, and backend systems. This role offers a competitive compensation package with benefits including health coverage and vacation time.

Qualifications

• 10+ years of professional software engineering experience in performance-critical systems.
• 3+ years of engineering leadership experience managing senior engineers.
• Experience with multiplayer, networking, backend, and distributed systems.
• Proficiency with modern development, debugging, and performance analysis tools.

Responsibilities

• Lead the online engineering for the EA SPORTS FC franchise.
• Guide a distributed team of 20+ engineers.
• Deliver core online systems and features.
• Coach engineers on architecture and career growth.

Skills

C++ experience

Leadership in engineering

Game networking concepts

Backend service architecture

Cross-discipline communication

Education

Bachelor's degree in Computer Science or related discipline

Tools

Visual Studio

Perforce

Git

Job description

Electronic Arts creates next-level entertainment experiences that inspire players and fans worldwide. EA SPORTS produces award-winning sports video games and is now building the future of football with EA SPORTS FC.

As the Lead Online Software Engineer, you will lead the online engineering area for the EA SPORTS FC franchise, owning execution against the technical vision and the long-term health of the systems that connect our players at massive scale.

Your Responsibilities

• Lead the Online engineering area for the EA SPORTS FC franchise, acting as the subject matter expert for online systems and driving execution, quality, and long-term system health in alignment with the technical direction set by the Technical Director.
• Guide, mentor, and coordinate a distributed team of 20+ engineers across multiple locations and time zones.
• Own the delivery of core online systems, including multiplayer networking, matchmaking, sessions, identity, platform services, telemetry, commerce, persistence, backend integrations, and live service infrastructure.
• Partner with production and operations leads to plan, prioritize, and deliver Online features across milestone, launch, and post-launch schedules.
• Review and guide technical designs for complex distributed, client/server, peer-to-peer, multithreaded, and real-time multiplayer systems.
• Ensure Online systems meet high standards for performance, scalability, reliability, security, maintainability, and player experience.
• Drive engineering best practices across the team, including technical design reviews, code reviews, testing strategies, documentation, incident prevention, and sustainable development processes.
• Identify technical risks early, communicate tradeoffs clearly, and drive mitigation plans across teams and disciplines.
• Oversee integration with first-party platform services, third-party APIs, account systems, matchmaking services, telemetry pipelines, and other external online services.
• Collaborate with platform teams to ensure compliance with Microsoft, Sony, Nintendo, and other platform requirements, including certification and online service policies.
• Partner with central technology teams across the company to integrate shared backend services, online infrastructure, and internal platform capabilities, ensuring they meet the franchise's technical, production, and player experience needs.
• Support launch readiness by driving performance testing, scale testing, reliability reviews, failure-mode planning, and operational readiness for online systems.
• Lead the team through live issues, production incidents, and post-launch improvements, ensuring effective investigation, communication, resolution, and follow-up.
• Establish clear ownership models, escalation paths, and communication rhythms for a distributed Online engineering team.
• Coach engineers on architecture, execution, communication, decision-making, and career growth.
• Balance hands-on technical involvement with strategic leadership, stepping into complex architectural, debugging, performance, or production issues when needed.
• Foster a culture of technical excellence, accountability, collaboration, operational discipline, and player-focused decision-making.

Your Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, or a related discipline, or an equivalent combination of education, technical training, and industry experience.
• 10+ years of professional software engineering experience, including significant hands-on experience with C++ in performance-critical, real-time, or large-scale systems.
• 5+ years of experience developing online, multiplayer, networking, backend, or distributed systems for games or other real-time interactive products.
• 3+ years of engineering leadership experience, including leading senior engineers, shaping technical recommendations, reviewing architecture, and driving execution across multiple teams or feature areas.
• Proven experience leading an Online, Multiplayer, Networking, Backend, Platform, or Live Services engineering area on a large-scale game or comparable high-traffic consumer product.
• Deep understanding of Client/Server, Peer-to-Peer, real-time multiplayer, multithreaded, and asynchronous system architectures.
• Strong knowledge of game networking concepts, including latency, bandwidth management, replication, prediction, synchronization, matchmaking, session management, and platform network requirements.
• Experience shipping and supporting at least one large-scale multiplayer, live service, or AAA game through production, launch, and post-launch operations.
• Experience integrating, owning, or supporting third-party APIs, platform services, account systems, matchmaking services, commerce systems, telemetry, or other external online services.
• Experience developing for Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo gaming platforms, including familiarity with platform SDKs, certification requirements, and online service constraints.
• Strong working knowledge of backend service architecture, distributed systems, databases, caching, scalability, reliability, observability, and operational support.
• Working knowledge of relational databases such as MySQL or PostgreSQL, NoSQL databases such as MongoDB, and in-memory data stores such as Redis.
• Practical experience working with dedicated server environments, including build pipelines, deployment workflows, log analysis, crash investigation, and server-side debugging.
• Proficiency with modern development, debugging, profiling, and performance analysis tools, including Visual Studio and platform-specific tooling.
• Experience using source control and version control systems such as Perforce, Git, or SVN in large multi-branch production environments.
• Strong understanding of software engineering principles, coding standards, technical design processes, testing strategies, code review practices, and long-term maintainability.
• Demonstrated ability to evaluate high-impact technical options, communicate tradeoffs clearly, balance quality and delivery risk, and align engineering execution with product and player-facing goals.
• Excellent cross-discipline communication skills, including experience partnering closely with production, design, QA, security, platform, operations, and other engineering groups.
• Proven ability to operate at both strategic and technical levels: helping shape long-term online technology direction in collaboration with the Technical Director, while still being able to dive into complex architectural, performance, reliability, or production issues.

Pay Transparency - North America

Compensation ranges and benefits for this role in Canada are as follows:

• British Columbia (including Vancouver and Victoria): $141,400 – $204,400 CAD (subject to location)

Pay is just one part of the overall compensation at EA. For Canada, we offer a package of benefits including vacation (3 weeks per year to start), 10 days per year of sick time, paid top-up to EI/QPIP benefits up to 100% of base salary when you welcome a new child (12 weeks for maternity, and 4 weeks for parental/adoption leave), extended health/dental/vision coverage, life insurance, disability insurance, and a retirement plan for regular full-time employees. Certain roles may also be eligible for bonus and equity.

Equal Opportunity Employer

Electronic Arts is an equal opportunity employer. All employment decisions are made without regard to race, color, national origin, ancestry, sex, gender, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, age, genetic information, religion, disability, medical condition, pregnancy, marital status, family status, veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by law. We will also consider employment qualified applicants with criminal records in accordance with applicable law. EA also makes workplace accommodations for qualified individuals with disabilities as required by applicable law.