R&D Director

Job Purpose

As the R&D Director, you will be the visionary leader driving the next generation of our gaming portfolio. You will oversee our core engineering, prototyping, and game design pipelines, transforming blue-sky ideas into market-ready hits. This role requires a unique blend of cutting-edge technical expertise, deep gaming intuition, and exceptional team-building skills to foster a culture of rapid innovation, high performance, and creative freedom.

Key Responsibilities

• Vision & Strategy: Define and execute Joytana’s technical and creative R&D roadmap, aligning game mechanics, engines, and emerging tech with long-term business goals.

• Rapid Prototyping & Innovation: Oversee the "Greenlight" pipeline, guiding teams from initial concept and paper designs to playable core-loop prototypes. Establish clear criteria for when to pivot, kill, or scale a project.

• Team Leadership & Culture: Lead, mentor, and scale a cross-functional team of game engineers, technical artists, and designers. Foster an inclusive, psychological-safe environment where creative risk-taking is celebrated.

• Tech Stack Optimization: Evaluate and implement next-gen tech (e.g., advanced AI for asset pipelines, procedural generation, cross-platform deployment, server architecture optimization) to keep Joytana ahead of the curve.

• Cross-Functional Collaboration: Partner closely with Product Management, LiveOps, User Acquisition, and Analytics teams to ensure R&D initiatives are informed by player data and market trends without suffocating creative instinct.

• Performance & Delivery: Establish KPIs for code quality, architectural scalability, and milestone delivery. Maintain an agile framework optimized for experimental development.

Requirements & Qualifications

Experience

• Lead by Example: 8+ years of experience in game development, with at least 3+ years in a senior leadership role (Director, Head of R&D, or Lead Producer/Architect) at a successful gaming studio.

• Proven Track Record: At least 2-3 successfully shipped commercial titles (Mobile, PC, or Console) where you played a pivotal role in architectural design or core game mechanics.

Technical Skills

• Deep proficiency in modern game engines (Unity)

• Strong understanding of modern software engineering practices, cloud infrastructure (AWS/GCP), and real-time multiplayer networking architectures.

• Experience integrating generative AI, machine learning, or advanced automated testing into development workflows is a major plus.

Soft Skills & Leadership

• The "Gamer" Instinct: A deep passion for gaming across multiple genres and an analytical understanding of what makes games fun, engaging, and monetizable.

• Ruthless Prioritization: Ability to manage multiple experimental threads simultaneously and make tough, data-backed decisions on project lifecycles.

• Communication Mastery: The ability to translate complex technical blockers into business impact for stakeholders, and translate business vision into actionable engineering goals.