// Open Role at High 5 Games
Lead the technical vision and architecture for High 5 Games' cloud platform, managing hundreds of Java microservices processing millions of real-time transactions daily. Drive engineering standards, cloud strategy, and mentor teams to ensure 24x7 availability for web and mobile casino gaming.
The role
High 5 Games is hiring a Director of Technology who is first and foremost a hands-on chief architect. You will shape the technical vision and grow into owning the architecture of a cloud platform built on hundreds of Java microservices that process millions of real-time transactions every day.
You will join a mature, high-volume platform that is already running in production. You'll spend your first 90 days learning it deeply, embedded with the teams that built it, and take ownership of its architecture domain by domain: starting with the data and transaction layer, then service architecture and the cloud platform. By the end of your first year, you'll own the platform's architecture end to end and set its direction for the years ahead.
This is not a slide-deck architect role. You will design systems, review code and schemas, set engineering standards, and lead the engineering and technology teams that build and run the platform. You must be comfortable explaining technology strategy and trade-offs to executives, business partners, and regulators.
The platform you will own
Responsibilities
Architecture and system design
Java and data platforms
Cloud, reliability, and operations
Leadership
Required qualifications
Preferred qualifications
Compensation and benefits
The base salary range for this role is [TBD- Negotiable] per year, based on experience and skills.
Benefits include medical, dental and vision coverage; 401(k) and any match; paid time off and holidays; other programs
About High 5 Games
High 5 Games is a leader in casino gaming entertainment, developing for land-based, online, mobile, and social markets. We have created hundreds of games played in 150 countries on six continents, and we are building the most entertaining social casino experience on web and mobile.
Our team includes mathematicians, software engineers, game designers, data scientists, and artists. It is a dynamic, multidisciplinary, high-learning environment. See us at high5games.com.
To apply
Apply through our careers page with your resume and a short description of relevant experience. Links to GitHub projects, architecture write-ups, or talks are welcome.
High 5 Games is an equal opportunity employer. As a US employer, we verify that all employees, regardless of citizenship or national origin, are eligible to work in the United States. Principals only; recruiters, please don't contact us.
• Take ownership of the microservices platform's architecture (service boundaries, APIs, data ownership, inter-service communication). • Design for high-volume, low-latency, real-time transaction processing with strong consistency and idempotency guarantees. • Define patterns for distributed transactions (sagas, outbox, event sourcing), retries, and failure recovery. • Set Java engineering standards (frameworks, libraries, build tooling, coding practices, JVM tuning). • Own the database strategy across relational, NoSQL, caching, and streaming platforms. • Guide the cloud architecture (containers, Kubernetes, managed data services, networking, infrastructure as code). • Set SLOs, observability standards (metrics, tracing, logging), and incident response practices. • Build, lead, and mentor engineering and technology teams; translate business goals into a technology roadmap. • 12+ years in software engineering, including 5+ years as an architect of large distributed systems. • Expert-level Java (Java 17+), with deep knowledge of Spring Boot/Spring Cloud, concurrency, and JVM performance tuning. • Proven track record designing and operating a microservices estate of 100+ services in production. • Hands-on experience with systems handling millions of real-time transactions per day. • Deep database expertise: relational (PostgreSQL, MySQL, Oracle), NoSQL, and caching (Cassandra, MongoDB, DynamoDB, Redis). • Event-driven architecture with Kafka or a comparable streaming platform. • Production experience on AWS or GCP, with Docker, Kubernetes, and infrastructure as code (Terraform). • Strong grasp of distributed-systems fundamentals (consistency models, idempotency, partitioning, failure modes). • Experience with API design (REST, gRPC), API gateways, and service mesh concepts. • Observability and reliability practice: Prometheus/Grafana, OpenTelemetry, Datadog or similar; SLOs and incident management. • Experience leading and growing engineering teams, and evaluating and interviewing technical candidates. • Clear communication with executives, peers, and individual contributors.