Principal Founding Engineer, AI-Native Product Incubation

Game Companies; England; On-site; GBP 90,000 - 160,000; Full time

Job summary

Electronic Arts seeks a Founding Engineer to own the technology behind Ventures products from 0 to 1 and beyond. The role is hands-on and full-stack, with a strong emphasis on scalable backend systems, including backend services, event streaming, and AI-enabled workflows for web and mobile clients.

You will work closely with client leads, build with AI coding agents, and own production environments, deployments, observability, and cost considerations across cloud services.

Qualifications

• 10+ years of professional software engineering experience, shipping consumer products in production.
• Deep backend expertise designing, building, and operating scalable distributed systems, preferably Go with gRPC and Protocol Buffers.
• Experience with event-driven and real-time architectures, including message streaming and durable workflows.
• Strong data modelling across relational, document, and in-memory stores (e.g., PostgreSQL, Firestore, Redis).
• Experience running production services in the cloud with Kubernetes (GKE) and IaC tools (Pulumi/Terraform).
• Experience building software with AI coding agents or strong interest in doing so; essential for the role.
• Web/mobile fluency to architect features end-to-end (SwiftUI on iOS, Kotlin/Jetpack Compose on Android, React on Web).
• Proven ability to own a system end-to-end and make sound technical decisions independently.

Responsibilities

• Own the technical architecture and direction of Ventures products end to end across backend services, cloud infrastructure, and web/mobile clients.
• Take new ideas from 0→1 by building testable versions to generate evidence and then harden scalable solutions.
• Design, build, and operate scalable backend systems including gRPC services, event streaming, and durable workflows for live experiences.
• Build platform capabilities (social, predictions, live content) shared across multiple products and EA games.
• Architect for scale and failure with attention to backpressure, idempotency, data growth, and recovery.
• Design end-to-end features across service and client boundaries, including API contracts and real-time delivery.

Skills

Backend engineering

Go & gRPC

Event-driven

Real-time

Data modeling

Cloud & Kubernetes

AI agents

Code review

Frontend basics

Independent decisions

Tools

NATS JetStream

Kafka

Temporal

PostgreSQL

Firestore

Redis

Google Cloud

Kubernetes (GKE)

Pulumi

Terraform

OpenTelemetry

SwiftUI

Jetpack Compose

React

Job description

Backend Development

5+ years

Software Engineering

Electronic Arts creates next-level entertainment experiences that inspire players and fans around the world. Here, everyone is part of the story. Part of a community that connects across the globe. A place where creativity thrives, new perspectives are invited, and ideas matter. A team where everyone makes play happen.

The future of entertainment is interactive, and our Ventures Group plays an important role in this future by building content, culture, and community that take us Beyond Gaming. Our focus is how fans experience sport in their everyday lives, before, during, and after the live moment. We build consumer experiences such as mobile apps, web, and companion products, and the platform capabilities behind them, such as social, predictions, and live content, that new products and existing EA games can share. Small, AI-assisted teams take ideas from first prototype through closed beta to wide release, shipping working product every week and letting evidence decide what scales.

We are seeking an experienced Founding Engineer to own the technology behind these products as they go from 0 → 1 and beyond.

This is a hands-on, full-stack role with a strong lean towards scalable backend systems: you will architect products end to end, from backend services, event streaming, and durable workflows through to web and native iOS and Android clients, working closely with our client leads. You will build in an AI-native way, with coding agents central to how you design, ship, and operate software.

Key Responsibilities

• Help own the technical architecture and direction of Ventures products end to end, across backend services, cloud infrastructure, and web and native iOS and Android clients.
• Take new ideas from 0 → 1: build testable versions quickly to generate evidence, then harden what works for growth.
• Design, build, and operate scalable backend systems, including gRPC services, event streaming, and durable workflows that serve real-time experiences around live sport.
• Build platform capabilities, such as social, predictions, and live content, that several products and existing EA games can share.
• Architect for scale and failure: fan-out cost, backpressure, idempotency, reconnect behaviour, data growth, and recovery as audiences grow.
• Design features end to end across service and client boundaries, including API and data contracts, real-time delivery, and local-first sync on mobile, partnering with the client leads on web, iOS, and Android implementation.
• Build with AI coding agents as a core part of your workflow, and own the tooling, guardrails, and review practices that let agents work safely and quickly across the codebase.
• Own production, including environments, deployments, infrastructure as code, observability, incident response, and the cost of cloud and third-party services.
• Release user-facing changes safely through feature flags, staged rollouts, and tested rollback plans, holding every launch to EA's bar for load, security, localisation, and monitoring.
• Integrate with EA platform services such as identity, moderation, and security, and with third-party sports data and AI providers.
• Set the engineering standard for code review, testing, documentation, and architectural decisions, keeping fast-moving codebases maintainable.
• Partner with product and design to shape roadmaps, turning ideas into technical plans with clear trade-offs.
• Support and onboard new engineers joining the team, and share architecture patterns and AI-native practices across Ventures so each new product starts on proven foundations.

How Your Success Will Be Measured

• Speed from idea to a testable product, with each release producing the evidence the next decision needs.
• Reliability, performance, and scalability of our products in production, especially at live-match peaks.
• Delivery of high-quality features across backend and clients, aligned with product goals and technical requirements.
• Quality of architectural decisions, and the maintainability and extensibility of the systems you own.
• Safe, observable releases: controlled rollouts, measurable outcomes, and fast recovery when something goes wrong.
• Effective use of AI coding agents to increase delivery speed without lowering the quality bar.
• A clear technical direction that client leads, product, and partner teams can plan around.
• Cost-efficient operation of cloud infrastructure and third-party services as usage grows.

What You Bring

• 10+ years of professional software engineering experience, including taking consumer products from 0 → 1 and operating them in production.
• Deep backend expertise designing, building, and operating scalable distributed systems, ideally in Go with gRPC and Protocol Buffers.
• Experience with event-driven and real-time architectures, ideally including message streaming such as NATS JetStream or Kafka, and durable workflow engines such as Temporal.
• Strong data modelling across relational, document, and in-memory stores, ideally PostgreSQL, Firestore, and Redis.
• Experience running production services in the cloud, ideally Google Cloud and Kubernetes (GKE), with infrastructure as code such as Pulumi or Terraform, CI/CD, and observability through OpenTelemetry or similar.
• Experience building software with AI coding agents, or a strong, demonstrable interest in doing so. This is essential for the role.
• Enough web and mobile fluency to architect features end to end and review client designs, ideally with SwiftUI on iOS, Kotlin with Jetpack Compose on Android and React on Web.
• Proven ability to own a system end to end and make sound technical decisions independently.
• Experience shipping user-facing changes safely with feature flags, staged rollouts, and production monitoring.
• Experience building real-time, social, sports, gaming, or entertainment products, or as a founding engineer, is a strong plus.
• Experience building LLM-powered or agentic product features is a plus.

Soft Skills & Values

• Takes ownership of outcomes, not just tasks.
• Pragmatic judgement about speed, quality, and scale, with strong attention to detail.
• Comfortable with ambiguity, and ready to change course when the evidence says so.
• Clear communicator who can explain technical trade-offs to engineers, product, and leadership.
• Collaborative partner to client leads, product, design, and partner teams.
• Generous with knowledge, and effective at bringing new engineers up to speed.
• Curious about how AI is changing software development, and keen to help shape it.
• Commitment to inclusivity, trust, and continuous improvement.

About Electronic Arts

We’re proud to have an extensive portfolio of games and experiences, locations around the world, and opportunities across EA. We value adaptability, resilience, creativity, and curiosity. From leadership that brings out your potential, to creating space for learning and experimenting, we empower you to do great work and pursue opportunities for growth.

We adopt a holistic approach to our benefits programs, emphasizing physical, emotional, financial, career, and community wellness to support a balanced life. Our packages are tailored to meet local needs and may include healthcare coverage, mental well-being support, retirement savings, paid time off, family leaves, complimentary games, and more. We nurture environments where our teams can always bring their best to what they do.

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.