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Director of Engineering, Fan Experience

Chicago, IL
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 Director of Engineering will lead 3–4 teams within Fan Experience — a mix of teams with a dedicated engineering manager and teams without one — spanning full-stack and front-end engineers, and partnering closely with the PMs and designers aligned to those teams to move quickly from idea to production.

You’ll work alongside Gametime’s other Director of Engineering on Fan Experience, each owning a distinct set of teams within the same demand-side org, and partnering closely on hiring, talent bar, and technical direction across the group.

This is an extraordinarily hands-on role. You’ll spend real time on the keyboard alongside your teams, and for the teams without a dedicated engineering manager, you’ll effectively be that team’s EM — running the day-to-day, unblocking the team, and staying close to the code. You’ll set the standard for how your teams use 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. On any given day, you’ll do whatever is highest-leverage to move the most important priorities forward, whether that’s shipping code, unblocking a teammate, or moving a hiring pipeline forward. This role reports to the VP of Product.

What You’ll Do

  • Hiring and talent bar: build and maintain a consistently high, consistent talent bar across all of your teams — hiring, leveling, and performance — and partner with your fellow engineering directors and leaders to keep that bar consistent across the broader organization
  • People leadership: directly manage a mix of individual contributors, and likely one or two Engineering Managers and/or Staff Engineers, across your 3–4 teams
  • Hands-on engineering management: for any team without a dedicated EM, act as that team’s de facto engineering manager — running the day-to-day rituals, unblocking the team, and staying hands-on in the codebase
  • AI-forward engineering: set the standard for how your teams use frontier models, AI coding agents/harnesses, and new tooling to generate, review, test, and monitor code — a primary lever for increasing velocity and quality together, not as a trade-off
  • Roadmap ownership: partner day-to-day with the PMs aligned to your teams to align on, sequence, and drive the roadmap; bring a real point of view on what should be built, not just how to build it
  • Cross-functional partnership: operate as a true peer to Product and Design across your teams, not just an execution arm
  • Velocity investment: partner with product to identify and invest in what will let your teams move faster over time — tooling, domain foundation design, tech debt paydown, and better use of AI in the development loop
  • Risk partnership: surface the risks in what’s being proposed, and bring concrete recommendations for how to mitigate or eliminate those risks over time
  • Delivery: own the engineering roadmap and execution plan across your teams, balancing speed, quality, and technical debt
  • Cross-team technical leadership: partner with your fellow directors and other engineering leaders to improve the marketplace more broadly, technically, over time
  • A set of teams and roadmaps tied directly to fan-facing feature velocity, quality, and business outcomes on the demand side of our marketplace

What You'll Bring

Common bar

  • A technically hands-on engineering leader who can write and review code, evaluate architecture and engineering tradeoffs, and step in as a team’s engineering manager when needed. Can clearly articulate and uphold a high technical bar across teams
  • Direct experience using frontier models, AI coding agents/harnesses, and modern tooling to guide ai-assisted work toward intended outcomes, define what constitutes valid results, and establish ways to verify it 
  • 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, including experience managing Engineering Managers and/or Staff-level engineers directly, alongside individual contributors (typically 8+ years in engineering, including several years managing managers or senior ICs)
  • A track record of building and holding a consistent hiring and performance bar across multiple teams, and partnering with peer engineering leaders to do the same across the organization. Develops existing engineers through specific feedback and coaching, as AI changes the work 
  • Familiarity with SQL/analytics (Datadog, Sentry, Honeybadger, etc) to diagnose funnel and feature performance and tie technical performance to business outcomes
  • 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 scaling or restructuring an engineering org — splitting teams, hiring EMs, releveling
  • 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 - $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.

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