Lead Software Engineer - Core Tech

Studio Overview

We are Sports Interactive, the studio behind Football Manager.

We are seeking a highly skilled and experienced Lead Software Engineer to join our Core Tech team in the Studio Technology Group. You bring extensive expertise in modern C++ and building robust shared libraries that can be used across multiple products and platforms, with a strong ability to define technical direction and guide others in architecting and implementing efficient, maintainable systems.

This role involves leading the architecture and hands‑on implementation of scalable and reusable foundations (core technology and tools) primarily in C++, designed so teams across the studio can adopt them easily and build on them with confidence. You will collaborate closely with other engineering teams, design, production, QA, and other stakeholders in the studio to align on priorities, remove blockers, and deliver high‑quality user experiences on multiple platforms including desktop, console, and mobile.

Although modern C++ is the primary focus of the role, solid working familiarity with Unity and C# is also required. Your contributions will directly shape the technical foundations and developer experience that enable teams across the studio to build intuitive, performant, and engaging Football Manager experiences, improving the player‑facing experience for our global audience. We expect our lead engineers to take ownership of both delivery and team outcomes, continuously improving standards, processes, and technical quality.

• Lead the design, implementation, and maintenance of scalable, reusable C++ libraries and tooling that support game teams across the studio.
• Provide technical leadership for our shared technology foundations (e.g., core runtime systems, platform abstractions, data/serialisation layers, build/integration tooling, and developer workflows) and define standards, patterns, and best practices.
• Own planning and coordination for the team’s work: scope, break down initiatives, assign and monitor delivery, and proactively manage risks and dependencies.
• Manage and support engineers on the team, including regular 1:1s, technical reviews, and progression, and foster a positive growth culture.
• Be a point of contact for shared runtime and tooling engineering across the studio, collaborating with other engineering teams, design, production, QA, and other disciplines to align on solutions and priorities.
• Drive code quality and technical excellence through reviews, architecture discussions, documentation, and continuous improvement of workflows and pipelines.
• Investigate and resolve complex technical issues, including performance bottlenecks, stability problems, and cross‑platform challenges.
• Champion profiling, optimisation, and appropriate use of tooling (profilers, static analysis, crash/telemetry investigation) to improve performance and reliability.
• Support hiring and onboarding for the team, including participating in interviews and helping to continuously improve team practices.

• Extensive professional experience in software engineering in video games using C++, having shipped multiple titles across multiple platforms.
• Expert modern C++ knowledge, including performance considerations (memory, allocation patterns, concurrency, data‑oriented design where appropriate).
• Strong technical capability building and maintaining shared codebases/libraries (including clear API design, versioning, and backward compatibility) used by multiple teams.
• Good experience improving developer workflows (build systems, CI, diagnostics, and tooling) for large multi‑team codebases.
• Consistently deliver a high bar for code quality, producing clean, maintainable, portable, performant, and well‑documented code.
• Proven ability to design and evolve architecture for complex systems, balancing scalability, iteration speed, stability, and cross‑team usability.
• Strong experience with profiling and optimisation, and a pragmatic approach to diagnosing and fixing performance and stability issues.
• Demonstrated experience leading engineers through coaching and mentoring; line management…