Co-founder and CTO

Job Title: Chief Technology Officer (CTO) Industry: Gaming, Interactive Entertainment & Virtual Worlds Department: Technology & Product Development

Employment Type: Full-Time | Executive Leadership

About the Role We are seeking an innovative, visionary, and technically strong Chief Technology Officer (CTO) to lead the development and technological strategy of our life simulation gaming platform. Inspired by life simulation games such as The Sims, our platform aims to create an immersive virtual world where players can design and customize characters, build and furnish homes, develop careers, form relationships, socialize with other players, and experience dynamic virtual lives. The CTO will be responsible for defining our technology vision, overseeing game development, building a scalable platform architecture, and leading the engineering team to deliver an engaging, reliable, and interactive gaming experience.

The ideal candidate combines strong technical expertise with a passion for gaming, virtual environments, social interaction, and emerging technologies.

Key Responsibilities 1. Technology Strategy & Leadership - Develop and execute the company's overall technology strategy in alignment with business objectives. - Establish the technical vision, architecture, and development roadmap for the gaming platform. - Evaluate emerging technologies, game engines, and development tools to improve performance and player experience. - Make strategic decisions regarding platform infrastructure, technology stacks, and software development methodologies. - Ensure the platform can scale as the player community and game features expand. 2. Game Development & Virtual World Architecture - Lead the technical development of the core life simulation experience. - Oversee systems that enable players to create, customize, and manage virtual characters. - Supervise the development of virtual homes, furniture placement, interior design, and environmental customization. - Guide the implementation of character needs, emotions, personalities, relationships, careers, and daily routines. - Oversee artificial intelligence and behavioral systems that make non-player characters (NPCs) feel realistic and responsive. - Ensure smooth interactions between characters, objects, environments, and gameplay systems. - Collaborate with game designers to translate creative concepts into functional game mechanics. 3. Platform Engineering & Infrastructure - Design and oversee a secure, scalable, and reliable technical infrastructure. - Lead the development of backend services, databases, APIs, and cloud infrastructure. - Establish systems for player accounts, authentication, saved game progress, inventories, and virtual economies. - Oversee multiplayer and social features, including player interactions, messaging, shared spaces, and community experiences where applicable. - Optimize game performance, loading times, responsiveness, and resource usage across supported devices. - Develop strategies for server reliability, data backups, disaster recovery, and platform availability. 4. Product Innovation & Technical Development - Work closely with the CEO, product managers, game designers, and creative teams to define product priorities. - Turn product concepts into technical specifications, development plans, and achievable milestones. - Oversee the development of new features, gameplay systems, and platform updates. - Support customization systems that allow players to personalize characters, clothing, homes, furniture, and other virtual assets. - Explore opportunities involving generative AI, procedural content generation, intelligent NPCs, and personalized gameplay. - Evaluate opportunities for user-generated content and player-created assets. 5. Team Building & Engineering Management - Recruit, lead, and mentor software engineers, game developers, technical artists, QA engineers, and other technical professionals. - Build a collaborative engineering culture focused on innovation, quality, accountability, and continuous improvement. - Establish coding standards, development workflows, testing procedures, and documentation practices. - Manage engineering resources, technical budgets, and development timelines. - Coordinate cross-functional teams to ensure smooth delivery of game features. - Identify skills gaps and develop plans for technical training and team growth. 6. Security, Privacy & Platform Integrity - Establish security standards to protect player accounts, personal information, and platform infrastructure. - Implement appropriate safeguards against cheating, exploits, unauthorized access, and malicious activity. - Work with relevant teams to support moderation tools, reporting systems, and player safety features. - Ensure the platform follows applicable privacy, data protection, and consumer protection requirements. - Establish secure processes for in-game purchases, digital assets, and payment integrations where applicable. 7. Quality Assurance & Performance Optimization - Oversee quality assurance, automated testing, and release management. - Establish processes for identifying, prioritizing, and resolving technical issues. - Monitor crashes, bugs, latency, server performance, and player-facing technical problems. - Ensure new releases are tested for stability, compatibility, and performance. - Use player feedback and platform analytics to guide technical improvements. - Maintain a reliable update process that minimizes disruptions to the player experience. 8. Monetization & Virtual Economy - Collaborate with business and product teams to support sustainable monetization strategies. - Oversee the technical implementation of optional subscriptions, cosmetic purchases, downloadable content, and virtual currencies where applicable. - Ensure transactions, entitlements, and digital inventory systems are reliable and secure. - Help design flexible systems for future expansion packs, new content, seasonal events, and additional gameplay features. - Support fair and transparent purchasing experiences.

Required Qualifications - Bachelor's or Master's degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, Game Development, or a related discipline, or equivalent practical experience. - Significant experience in software engineering, game technology, platform architecture, or technical leadership. - Demonstrated experience leading engineering teams or delivering complex software products. - Strong understanding of game development architectures, real-time systems, and interactive applications. - Experience designing scalable backend systems, APIs, databases, and cloud infrastructure. - Familiarity with game engines such as Unity or Unreal Engine. - Knowledge of programming languages relevant to game and platform development, such as C#, C++, Java, TypeScript, or Python. - Experience with version control, automated testing, CI/CD pipelines, and modern software development practices. - Understanding of application security, performance optimization, and production monitoring. - Strong leadership, communication, problem-solving, and strategic planning skills. Preferred Qualifications - Previous experience developing a life simulation game, multiplayer game, sandbox game, social gaming platform, or virtual world. - Experience implementing AI-driven NPC behavior, character relationships, emotion systems, or simulation mechanics. - Familiarity with cloud platforms such as AWS, Microsoft Azure, or Google Cloud. - Experience building multiplayer networking systems and persistent virtual environments. - Knowledge of procedural generation, machine learning, or generative AI applications in gaming. - Experience with virtual economies, digital marketplaces, user-generated content, or player customization systems. - Familiarity with cross-platform development for PC, mobile, console, or web-based gaming. - Experience taking a game or technology product from concept through launch and ongoing live operations. Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) The CTO's performance will be evaluated using measurable outcomes, including: - Platform Stability: Uptime, crash rates, and reliability of core game systems. - Performance: Loading times, frame rates, latency, and responsiveness across supported devices. - Development Delivery: Achievement of product milestones and release schedules. - Product Quality: Bug rates, severity of technical incidents, and time required to resolve issues. - Scalability: Ability to support increasing numbers of players, content assets, and concurrent activities. - Player Experience: Improvements in technical satisfaction, retention-related performance, and feedback on game functionality. - Security: Effectiveness of security controls and timely resolution of vulnerabilities. - Engineering Productivity: Code quality, deployment efficiency, development predictability, and team effectiveness. - Technical Budget: Responsible management of infrastructure costs, software investments, and engineering resources. Leadership Expectations The successful candidate will be expected to: - Think strategically while remaining capable of evaluating technical implementation details. - Balance ambitious creative ideas with practical engineering constraints. - Champion innovation without compromising security, performance, or maintainability. - Build strong relationships across technology, design, art, production, marketing, and business teams. - Make informed decisions that support both the immediate product roadmap and long-term platform growth. - Foster a culture where experimentation, collaboration, and continuous learning are encouraged. What Success Looks Like Within the first 12 months, the CTO should aim to: - Establish a clear technology roadmap aligned with the company's product vision. - Build or strengthen the core engineering team and development processes. - Define a scalable architecture for the game's essential systems. - Deliver stable core gameplay features, including character customization, virtual environments, and simulation mechanics. - Establish reliable development, testing, deployment, and monitoring processes. - Create a technical foundation that supports future multiplayer capabilities, content expansion, and monetization. - Help position the platform for sustainable growth and long-term innovation. About Our Vision We aim to create a rich, interactive virtual world where players can express themselves, build meaningful virtual lives, explore their creativity, and connect with others through immersive simulation gameplay.

The CTO will play a critical role in transforming this vision into a technically robust, scalable, and engaging product. The mission is simple: build the technology that brings a living virtual world to life.

Work Location: Remote