Director of Engineering, Fan Experience

Gametime; Chicago (IL); On-site; USD 257,000 - 302,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Flexible PTO

Competitive salary & equity

Gametime credits

Medical, dental, & vision insurance

Life insurance

Disability benefits

Carrot Fertility

401k, HSA

Company off-sites

Wellness programs

Tenure recognition

Job summary

Gametime is seeking an Engineering Manager to lead fan-facing development across iOS, Android, mobile web, and desktop. You will code alongside the team, set standards for frontier models and AI tooling, and drive velocity and quality in a fast-paced marketplace.

You will partner with Product and Design, own the engineering roadmap, and mentor engineers to advance to new career levels while balancing speed, stability, and technical debt.

Qualifications

• Hands-on engineering manager with hands-on coding and mentoring responsibilities.
• Experience using frontier models, AI coding agents, and tooling to improve velocity and quality.
• Track record shipping consumer-facing features that drive business outcomes.

Responsibilities

• Hands-on leadership: code alongside your team and lead from the front.
• Define and own the engineering roadmap and execution plan.
• Partner with Product and Design to define product direction and priorities.
• Invest in tooling, tech debt paydown, and AI-enhanced development workflows.
• Mentor engineers and raise the talent bar for multiple teams.
• Collaborate with cross-functional engineering leads to improve marketplace architecture.

Skills

Hands-on leadership

Front-end & back-end

React & React Native

Full-stack engineering

AI tooling & models

Job description

About Us

Live experiences help people cross today’s digital divide and focus on what truly connects us – the here, the now, this once-in-a-lifetime moment that’s bringing us together. To fulfill Gametime’s mission of uniting the world through shared experiences, we make it easy for people to discover and access the live experiences that matter most.

About Us

Live experiences help people cross today’s digital divide and focus on what truly connects us – the here, the now, this once-in-a-lifetime moment that’s bringing us together. To fulfill Gametime’s mission of uniting the world through shared experiences, we make it easy for people to discover and access the live experiences that matter most.
With platforms on iOS, Android, mobile web and desktop supporting more than 60,000 events across the US and Canada, we are reimagining the event ticket industry in order to move at the speed of life.
The Role
Gametime’s Fan Experience team owns how fans discover, decide on, and purchase tickets on the demand side of our marketplace — the core experience for millions of ticket buyers across iOS, Android, mobile web, and desktop. This Engineering Manager will lead a team of full-stack and front-end engineers building the features and value propositions that define how fans experience Gametime, partnering day-to-day with a dedicated Product Manager and Designer to move quickly from idea to production.
This is a hands‑on role. You’ll spend real time on the keyboard alongside your team, and you’ll set the standard for how the team uses frontier models, AI coding tools, and new harnesses to generate, review, test, and monitor code — raising both velocity and quality as the bar for what’s possible keeps moving. This role reports to the VP of Product.

What You’ll Do

• Hands-on leadership: spend a meaningful share of your time actually coding alongside the team — you lead from the front, not just from the roadmap
• AI-forward engineering: set the standard for how your team uses frontier models, AI coding agents/harnesses, and new tooling to generate, review, test, and monitor code — the primary lever for increasing velocity and quality (i.e. fewer bugs, more stable services, cohesive system architecture) together, not as a trade-off
• Cross-functional partnership: partner closely, day-to-day, with a dedicated PM and Designer as a trio; bring a real point of view on what the product and features should be, not just how to build them
• Velocity investment: partner with product to identify and invest in what will let the team move faster over time — tooling, domain foundation design, tech debt paydown, and better use of AI in the development loop
• Risk partnership: partner with product to surface the risks in what’s being proposed, and bring concrete recommendations and proposals for how to mitigate and eliminate those risks over time
• Delivery: own the engineering roadmap and execution plan for your area, balancing speed, quality, and technical debt
• Mentorship and talent bar: mentor engineers toward their next career level, hold a high talent bar for hiring and performance on your team, and help level up talent on other teams too
• Cross-team technical leadership: partner with engineering leads and counterparts on other teams to improve the marketplace more broadly, technically, over time
• A team and roadmap tied directly to fan-facing feature velocity, quality, and business outcomes on the demand side of our marketplace

What You’ll Bring

• A hands-on engineering manager — comfortable spending real time writing and reviewing code alongside your team, not just directing from above
• Direct experience using frontier models, AI coding agents/harnesses, and modern tooling to meaningfully improve engineering velocity and quality, and a point of view on where this is headed
• A track record of shipping consumer-facing product features that moved measurable business outcomes
• Strong cross-functional partnership skills — comfortable operating as a true peer to Product and Design, with your own opinions on what should be built, not just executing their specs
• Experience managing full-stack and/or front-end engineering teams, with meaningful people-management experience (typically 5+ years in engineering, including several as a manager)
• Familiarity with SQL/analytics to diagnose funnel and feature performance
• Experience leading full-stack teams with end-to-end ownership of consumer-facing web and mobile products, backend services, and APIs in a high-traffic marketplace or e-commerce environment.
• Strong understanding of modern front-end stacks (e.g., React and React Native), backend services, APIs, and full-stack architecture, with the technical depth to lead teams across the stack.
• Experience partnering with Product and Design in a fast-moving, iterative environment (feature flags, A/B testing, rapid experimentation)
• A data-driven approach to prioritization and technical trade-offs

Nice to Have

• Experience in consumer marketplaces or high-intent, high-conversion consumer apps
• A track record of building or championing internal tooling/platform investments that compounded team velocity over time

What We Offer

• Flexible PTO
• Competitive salary & equity package
• Monthly Gametime credits for any event ($1,200/yr)
• Medical, dental, & vision insurance
• Life insurance and disability benefits
• Diverse Family-forming benefits through Carrot Fertility
• 401k, HSA, pre-tax savings programs
• Company off-sites and meet-ups
• Wellness programs
• Tenure recognition

At Gametime pay ranges are subject to change and assigned to a job based on specific market median of similar jobs according to 3rd party salary benchmark surveys. Individual pay within that range can vary for several reasons including skills/capabilities, experience, and available budget.

United States - Pay Range: $256,857 USD - $302,185 USD

Gametime is committed to bringing together individuals from different backgrounds and perspectives. We strive to create an inclusive environment where everyone can thrive, feel a sense of belonging, and do great work together. As an equal opportunity employer, we prohibit any unlawful discrimination against a job applicant on the basis of their race, color, religion, veteran status, sex, parental status, gender identity or expression, transgender status, sexual orientation, national origin, age, disability or genetic information. We respect the laws enforced by the EEOC and are dedicated to going above and beyond in fostering diversity across our company.