Associate Engineering Director | Activision Blizzard Media

As an Associate Engineering Director at Activision Blizzard Media, you will lead multiple high-performing teams responsible for mission-critical platform and delivery systems in a cloud-native environment. Your role involves translating ambiguous business goals into clear technical strategies, roadmaps, and execution plans. You will drive technical and architectural excellence, ensure operational and execution excellence, and foster cross-functional collaboration. This position requires strong leadership, organizational skills, and a passion for continuous improvement to deliver predictable, high-quality outcomes.

Must Have

• Build, lead, and sustain high-performing teams and managers
• Create an environment where engineers can do their best work through focus, prioritization, and strong execution discipline
• Coach and develop engineering leaders
• Translate unclear or evolving business goals into concrete technical strategies, roadmaps, and execution plans
• Provide technical leadership and oversight across distributed systems and cloud-based services
• Ensure architecture decisions balance simplicity, scalability, maintainability, and time-to-value
• Establish and continuously improve execution practices, delivery predictability, and operational hygiene
• Lead by example in incident management, post-incident learning, and continuous improvement
• Partner closely with Product, Data, Commercial, and Platform teams
• 8+ years of proven experience leading multiple teams or managers
• Strong organizational skills and time management
• Ability to simplify complexity, create clarity, and guide teams through ambiguity
• Solid technical foundation
• Strong passion for operational excellence, reliability, and continuous improvement
• Excellent communication skills and a collaborative leadership style

Good to Have

• Deep ad-tech experience
• Domain-specific experience

Perks & Benefits

• Medical, dental, vision insurance
• Health savings account or health reimbursement account
• Healthcare spending accounts
• Dependent care spending accounts
• Life and AD&D insurance
• Disability insurance
• 401(k) with Company match
• Tuition reimbursement
• Charitable donation matching
• Paid holidays and vacation
• Paid sick time
• Floating holidays
• Compassion and bereavement leaves
• Parental leave
• Mental health & wellbeing programs
• Fitness programs
• Free and discounted games
• Supplemental life & disability insurance
• Legal service
• ID protection
• Rental insurance
• Relocation assistance (if required)

Your Role Within the Kingdom

Do you want to lead teams that turn ambiguous business goals into clear, scalable, and reliable technology outcomes?

As an Associate Engineering Director, you will lead multiple teams responsible for mission-critical platform and delivery systems, operating at scale in a cloud-native environment. Your impact will come not from domain-specific expertise, but from your ability to build high-performing teams, bring technical clarity, and drive operational and execution excellence across complex, cross-functional initiatives.

This role is ideal for an engineering leader who thrives in fast-moving environments, values strong fundamentals, and takes pride in predictable delivery, system quality, and team health.

About Activision Blizzard Media

Activision Blizzard Media is the gateway for brands to the #1 cross-platform gaming company in the western world, with hundreds of millions of players across over 190 countries. Our legendary portfolio includes iconic mobile game franchises such as Candy Crush™, esports opportunities like the Call of Duty® and Overwatch® Leagues, and some of the top PC and console gaming franchises such as World of Warcraft®, Call of Duty®, and StarCraft®.

Responsibilities

Lead High-Performing Engineering Teams

• Build, lead, and sustain high-performing teams and managers with clear ownership, accountability, and trust.
• Create an environment where engineers can do their best work through focus, prioritization, and strong execution discipline.
• Coach and develop engineering leaders, helping them grow technical judgment, delivery confidence, and people leadership skills.

Bring Clarity to Ambiguous Business Objectives

• Translate unclear or evolving business goals into concrete technical strategies, roadmaps, and execution plans.
• Help teams navigate trade-offs, define scope, and make sound decisions under uncertainty.
• Act as a technical and organizational anchor, ensuring alignment between product intent, engineering execution, and operational reality.

Drive Technical & Architectural Excellence

• Provide technical leadership and oversight across distributed systems and cloud-based services.
• Ensure architecture decisions balance simplicity, scalability, maintainability, and time-to-value.
• Promote strong engineering fundamentals: clean design, testability, observability, and operational readiness.

Operational & Execution Excellence

• Establish and continuously improve execution practices, delivery predictability, and operational hygiene.
• Ensure teams plan realistically, manage dependencies effectively, and deliver with high quality.
• Lead by example in incident management, post-incident learning, and continuous improvement.
• Use metrics and signals to guide decisions without creating unnecessary process or overhead.

Cross-Functional Collaboration

• Partner closely with Product, Data, Commercial, and Platform teams to ensure shared understanding and aligned outcomes.
• Communicate clearly with both technical and non-technical stakeholders, setting expectations and building confidence in delivery.

Skills to Create Thrills

• 8+ years of proven experience leading multiple teams or managers in a complex engineering organization.
• Strong organizational skills and time management, with the ability to prioritize effectively at scale.
• The ability to simplify complexity, create clarity, and guide teams through ambiguity.
• A solid technical foundation that enables you to ask the right questions, challenge assumptions, and support sound architectural decisions.
• A strong passion for operational excellence, reliability, and continuous improvement.
• Excellent communication skills and a collaborative leadership style.
• Deep ad-tech or domain-specific experience is not required. We value leaders who can learn domains quickly and apply strong engineering and organizational fundamentals.

What Success Looks Like

• Teams deliver predictably and with high quality, even as priorities evolve.
• Engineers understand why they’re building something and how success is measured.
• Systems are stable, observable, and continuously improving.
• Stakeholders trust engineering to turn complexity into outcomes.

Why Join Us

You’ll join an organization that:

• Values engineering excellence and strong fundamentals
• Invests in people, leadership, and sustainable delivery
• Encourages thoughtful decision-making over heroics

We love hearing from anyone who is enthusiastic about changing the games industry. Not sure you meet all qualifications? Let us decide! Research shows that women, veterans, and members of other under-represented groups tend to not apply to jobs when they think they may not meet every qualification, when, in fact, they often do! We are committed to creating a diverse and inclusive environment and strongly encourage you to apply.

We are committed to working with and providing reasonable assistance to individuals with physical and mental disabilities. If you are a disabled individual requiring an accommodation to apply for an open position, please email your request to accommodationrequests@activisionblizzard.com. General employment questions cannot be accepted or processed here. Thank you for your interest.

We are an equal opportunity employer and value diversity at our company. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, age, marital status, veteran status, or disability status, among other characteristics.

Rewards

We provide a suite of benefits that promote physical, emotional and financial well-being for ‘Every World’ - we’ve got our employees covered! Subject to eligibility requirements, the Company offers comprehensive benefits including:

• Medical, dental, vision, health savings account or health reimbursement account, healthcare spending accounts, dependent care spending accounts, life and AD&D insurance, disability insurance;
• 401(k) with Company match, tuition reimbursement, charitable donation matching;
• Paid holidays and vacation, paid sick time, floating holidays, compassion and bereavement leaves, parental leave;
• Mental health & wellbeing programs, fitness programs, free and discounted games, and a variety of other voluntary benefit programs like supplemental life & disability, legal service, ID protection, rental insurance, and others;
• If the Company requires that you move geographic locations for the job, then you may also be eligible for relocation assistance.

Eligibility to participate in these benefits may vary for part time and temporary full-time employees and interns with the Company. You can learn more by visiting https://www.benefitsforeveryworld.com/.

In the U.S., the standard base pay range for this role is $155,500.00 - $287,876.00 Annual. These values reflect the expected base pay range of new hires across all U.S. locations. Ultimately, your specific range and offer will be based on several factors, including relevant experience, performance, and work location. Your Talent Professional can share this role’s range details for your local geography during the hiring process. In addition to a competitive base pay, employees in this role may be eligible for incentive compensation. Incentive compensation is not guaranteed. While we strive to provide competitive offers to successful candidates, new hire compensation is negotiable.

About Us

Activision Blizzard, Inc. is the world’s largest interactive entertainment company, with operations across North America, Europe, and Asia. We are home to some of the most beloved entertainment franchises including Call of Duty®, Skylanders®, World of Warcraft®, Overwatch®, Diablo®, Candy Crush™, and Bubble Witch™. Our combined entertainment network delights hundreds of millions of monthly active users in 196 countries, making us the largest gaming network on the planet!

We’re proud to be recognized as one of FORTUNE’s "100 Best Companies To Work For®” for five consecutive years and have earned a spot on FORTUNE’s “Most Admired Companies,” and “Future 50” lists. Our 10,000+ global employees are some of the best and brightest talents across entertainment, media, and technology.

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