Lead Software Engineer

SteelSeries is the original esports brand at the intersection of gaming and culture, celebrating its 25th anniversary in 2026. Founded in 2001, SteelSeries was the pioneering supporter of esports and competitive gaming tournaments. Today, the brand continues to inspire and empower gamers worldwide as a global leader in gaming peripherals, including headsets, keyboards, mice, and more. Driven by industry‑defining innovation, SteelSeries is known for premium quality and performance that helps gamers push their boundaries and play like a star. Here at SteelSeries, you’ll join a global community of gaming enthusiasts united by a passion for delivering exceptional experiences for gamers everywhere.

About the role

We are looking for people that believe in collective code ownership, prioritize writing tests for every story, and are open to mentoring and being mentored. Our GG cloud team is in its infancy, and we are searching for someone to get in at the ground floor and kick it into high gear. If you are eager to expand your skills, engage in collaborative discussions with other engineers, designers, and product managers, and contribute to the improvement of our products and code, then this opportunity may be a great fit for you.

As a Lead Software Engineer, you will be responsible for working closely with our hardware and software product teams to ensure our products are designed and engineered to deliver a best-in-class web experience for our gamers. An ideal candidate is a data-minded full-stack cloud engineer that can make a huge impact on our product development, has a track record of delivering scalable cloud architectures, with hands-on experience developing high-traffic websites and open APIs that serve as foundational building blocks across a product portfolio, and has a serious passion for technology.

Responsibilities

• Come up to speed with our tech stack (React and AWS container-based deployment) and ship a new feature in our cloud platform within the first month.
• Evaluate the architecture of our cloud platform, suggest potential areas for refactoring, and work with product management and engineering to plan desired changes within three months.
• Assist product teams in defining the quarterly roadmap for the cloud platform team and continue innovating web-based experiences for gamers.
• Provide feedback on unannounced hardware products coming out next year.
• Work closely with hardware and software product teams to align on the vision for upcoming products and help define hardware and web APIs for seamless interaction between apps, hardware, and cloud services.
• Proactively refactor code to maintain a perpetually clean design with adequate test coverage.
• Evaluate new programming languages, frameworks, and tools, proposing integration or migration when beneficial.
• Work across software teams to educate others on best practices for code, test, and documentation quality.

Requirements

• 7+ years of experience in full-stack software engineering.
• Experience building scalable cloud solutions, including container orchestration, database design, network infrastructure, and distributed systems design.
• Experience designing and building web backends and web user interfaces.
• Demonstrated ability to build and operate reliable, high-availability cloud platforms with hands-on experience in observability (logging, tracing, monitoring) and resilience engineering.
• Proven experience leading a platform engineering team to deliver well-documented and well-tested cloud solutions.
• Proficiency leveraging AI-assisted development tools (e.g., GitHub Copilot, Claude, ChatGPT) to accelerate delivery, improve code quality, and drive engineering efficiency.
• A desire to mentor and elevate fellow engineers.
• Eagerness to continuously learn and excel in the craft of software engineering.
• Experience leading a team of software engineers to produce tested and well-documented software.

Benefits

• 10% time (slack day) policy: Spend 1 day every two weeks learning a new skill, spiking out a new feature, taking a training course, or putting together a Lunch & Learn presentation for colleagues.
• Continuous education stipend to support ongoing training and growth.
• Early access to SteelSeries gear such as headsets, keyboards, mice, and controllers to test and provide feedback before release.
• Employee discount on all SteelSeries hardware for you, friends, and family.