Head of Game Development

About the Position

We are seeking a Head of Game Development to lead our iGaming team, focusing on creating high-quality casino games. The role combines technical leadership, game development, people management, and business processes building. The primary objective is to establish a scalable game development capability that can consistently deliver commercially viable, technically robust, and regulation-ready games.

Responsibilities

• Build the Game Development Function

  • Build the game development team from the ground up.
  • Define the required engineering structure, roles, and responsibilities.
  • Recruit and develop key technical talent.
  • Establish engineering standards, development practices, and team processes.
  • Create a high-performance engineering culture focused on ownership, quality, and delivery.

• Define Technical Strategy and Architecture

  • Define the technical vision and architecture for the game development platform.
  • Select and evolve the technology stack, frameworks, and development tools.
  • Establish reusable game components, engines, libraries, and development frameworks.
  • Design the architecture to support multiple game types and future game portfolio growth.
  • Ensure that new games can be developed efficiently within a tight timeframe and without unnecessary reinvention.
  • Establish standards for performance, scalability, maintainability, and security.

• Own End-to-End Game Development

  • Lead the technical side of the complete game lifecycle: development → QA → owner acceptance → certification → release → maintenance.
  • Ensure predictable delivery of game titles.
  • Establish development estimates, technical milestones, and release criteria.
  • Identify technical risks and remove development blockers.
  • Establish an efficient process for launching multiple games in parallel.

• Quality, Reliability, and Compliance

  • Build automated testing and simulation into the development lifecycle.
  • Work with QA, Security, Compliance, and relevant teams to ensure games meet required standards.
  • Support certification and regulatory requirements for target markets.
  • Ensure production games are stable, observable, and maintainable.
  • Establish appropriate incident, defect, and release-management practices.
  • Define technical capabilities for collecting game performance and usage data.
  • Ensure games expose the necessary telemetry and analytics.
  • Establish feedback loops from released games into the development process.

• Platform and Reusability

  • Avoid building every game as a standalone project, but focus on reusable game engine/framework components.
  • Common game services; shared UI/gameplay components; configuration-driven mechanics where appropriate; common integration patterns; automated testing and simulation capabilities; common observability and logging; common release mechanisms; tooling that allows new games to be developed faster over time.
  • The target is to progressively reduce the marginal cost and development time of each new game.

• Build the Future Game Provider Capability

  • As the portfolio grows, the Head of Game Development will contribute to transforming the team into a Game Studio / independent Game Provider.
  • This includes helping establish: scalable game technology; game portfolio architecture; integration/API standards; external distribution readiness; multi-operator / multi-platform support; localization and market expansion capabilities; certification readiness; operational support for externally distributed games; technical processes appropriate for a B2B game provider.

Requirements

• Proven experience leading a game development team in iGaming.
• Actual iGaming/game-development experience is a strong requirement.
• Experience with casino games, slots, crash games, or similar real-time gaming products is strongly preferred.
• Demonstrated ability to take technical ownership from architecture through production.
• Experience working with cross-functional teams including Game Design, Game Math, Art, QA, and Product.
• Strong understanding of: game development architecture; real-time systems; game state management; APIs and backend integration; automated testing; CI/CD; performance optimization; secure software development.
• Casino-specific knowledge: slots and/or crash game mechanics; RNG and game logic; understanding of how mathematical models are translated into production software. Game simulation and statistical validation.
• Experience with gaming certification and regulatory requirements is highly desirable.

Qualifications

• Education: Bachelor’s / Master’s degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, or Management.
• 7+ years of professional software/game development experience, with significant experience in senior technical or engineering leadership roles.
• Proven experience as a Tech Lead, Engineering Manager, Technical Director, Head of Engineering/Game Development, or equivalent.
• Strong software architecture and game-engineering expertise.

Soft Skills

• Strong ownership and accountability for outcomes. Ability to prioritize effectively in a high-volume and rapidly changing environment.
• Exceptional communication skills with the ability to lead under pressure.
• Strategic thinker able to balance business needs with team capabilities and risk management.
• Strong communication and mentoring skills; ability to lead, motivate, and mentor a team.
• Entrepreneurial mindset and willingness to build something that could eventually become an independent game provider.

We Offer

• An exciting and challenging job in a fast-growing product holding, the opportunity to be part of a multicultural team of top professionals in Development, Engineering, and Architecture, Management, Operations, Marketing, etc.
• Great working atmosphere with passionate IT experts and leaders, sharing a friendly culture and a success-driven mindset is guaranteed.
• Beautiful offices in Warsaw, Limassol, Yerevan – work with comfort and enjoy the opportunity to build a network of connections with IT professionals day by day.
• Laptop & all necessary equipment for work according to the holding standards.
• Paid vacations, personal events days, days off.
• Paid sick leave.
• Medical insurance.
• Referral program - enjoy cooperation with your colleagues and get the bonus.
• Educational support by our L&D team: internal and external trainings and conferences, courses on Udemy.
• Sport benefit.
• Multiple internal activities: online platform with newsletters, quests, gamification, and presents for collecting bonuses, PIN-UP talks club for movie and book lovers, board games cozy evenings, special office days dedicated to holidays, etc.
• Company events, team buildings.

About the Company

At PIN-UP, we are committed to creating trends, not following them. Join our team and help us build the future of iGaming.