Chief Technology Officer (Social Casino Gaming)

Company Description JoyFlux Studios is supporting a social casino mobile gaming studio with a 20-game portfolio played by users around the world. Our games span slot machines, collection mechanics, tournaments, battle passes, VIP systems, and live-ops events. We're a remote-first studio with leadership in the United States and a global team across the Americas and Asia. We move fast. We value execution, ownership, and consistency. If you enjoy leading engineering at scale and shipping mobile games in a production-focused environment, you'll fit right in. The Role We're hiring a Chief Technology Officer to lead engineering across our 20-game social casino portfolio, set the technical roadmap, and scale our development organization. This is a player-coach role: you'll own architecture, infrastructure, and team leadership while staying close enough to the code to make sharp technical decisions. You'll report directly to the CEO, with a strong partnership with the COO on product, live-ops, and portfolio strategy. You'll lead a team of 8 engineers and 2 QA engineers based in Vietnam, with room to grow the team on an as-needed basis. You'll own the full stack: Unity (C#) game clients, .NET backend services, live-ops infrastructure, and the data and analytics platforms that support our portfolio. This is a high-impact role at a fast-growing studio with real revenue, an established portfolio, and meaningful equity on the table. Working Hours & Time Zones Our engineering and QA team in Vietnam works roughly 7:00 PM – 9:00 AM PST (their daytime hours). As CTO, you can work US hours or any window that supports the team — what matters is that you create consistent overlap, set a clear communication rhythm, and keep the team in sprint mode. What You Will Do • Own the technical roadmap across our 20-game Unity portfolio, including engine strategy, server architecture, and platform infrastructure • Lead, mentor, and grow our senior engineering and QA team • Set engineering standards: sprint cadence, code review, CI/CD, branching strategy, secrets management, and release discipline • Drive release predictability across the portfolio – define what "ready to ship" means and enforce it • Partner with the CEO and COO on product strategy, live-ops planning, and portfolio prioritization • Build and scale backend infrastructure for live-ops features: events, sales, tournaments, VIP, loyalty, and collection systems • Hire and onboard engineers to fill key gaps across client, backend, and data infrastructure • Establish engineering metrics that surface team health and output without micromanagement • Stay hands-on in Unity and .NET where it matters most – architecture, production debugging, and critical code review What We're Looking For • 10+ years of mobile game engineering experience, including 3+ years in a senior technical leadership role (CTO, VP Engineering, Engineering Director, or Lead Engineer at a multi-game studio) • Direct experience shipping social casino, slots, or live-ops-heavy mobile games – strongly preferred • Deep hands-on expertise with Unity (C#) for mobile clients: build pipelines, asset bundles, addressables, iOS/Android platform integration, and production debugging • Strong .NET / C# backend experience, including modern .NET and microservice architecture • Proven success leading distributed engineering teams across time zones, including offshore teams in Asia and direct working relationships with US-based executive leadership • Strong opinions on engineering hygiene: branching strategy, code review standards, CI/CD, secrets management, observability, and on-call practice • A clear point of view on how to measure engineering output on a remote team – commit cadence, PR throughput, ticket velocity, release predictability – without it feeling like surveillance • Excellent written and verbal English. You will write architectural decisions, technical roadmaps, and team standards regularly. • Self-starter who thrives without micromanagement, and who sets the same bar for the team • Bonus: experience with slot math engines, RGS (Remote Game Server) architecture, Unity LiveOps tooling, Firebase / BigQuery / GameAnalytics, or social casino monetization systems (VIP, battle passes, coin stores) Compensation • Competitive base salary, calibrated to location and seniority • Meaningful equity stake with a four-year vest and one-year cliff – a real co-founder-tier grant for the right person • Performance-based bonus tied to portfolio releases, revenue milestones, and engineering KPIs • Flexible schedule and remote-first culture • Specific compensation discussed in the first conversation Hiring Process We respect your time. The process is structured, transparent, and runs in 3–4 weeks end to end. 1. Intro conversation (45 min) with our COO 2. Technical exercise (take-home, 4–6 hours). A focused written exercise on architecture, prioritization, and team operating model. No live coding. 3. Architecture interview (90 min) with our COO 4. Working session (90 min) with our CEO and COO 5. References Before You Apply This is a fast-paced, execution-focused role at a remote-first studio. We're looking for a hands-on technical leader who has shipped social casino games, led distributed engineering teams, and can set a high bar for the organization from day one. We're moving quickly – we expect to make a hire within the next 30 days. If that's you, we'd love to hear from you. How to Apply Please share: • Your resume or LinkedIn • Links to relevant work: shipped games, GitHub, architecture writeups, or conference talks • A brief message (300 words max) explaining: (1) the most complex engineering organization you've led, (2) how you measure engineering output on a remote team, and (3) why social casino specifically Job Type: Full-time Work Location: Remote (global) Start Date: Within 30 days Work Location: Remote Job Type: Full-time Compensation: $2,500-5,000 per month (USD)