Head of Engineering (Poker)

We’ve partnered with an exciting new start up in the online poker space, and they’re looking for a Head of Engineering to join their team!

Blending cutting-edge tech with the authenticity of a physical poker table, they offer a fast, immersive experience where trust, transparency, and skill take centre stage. Whether it’s jumping into global games or hosting private tables with friends, they’re on a mission to bring the “real” back to online poker. No bots, no gimmicks, just pure gameplay.

The Role

As the Head of Engineering, you’ll step into a pivotal leadership role at the heart of their platform. You’ll drive engineering execution, ensure rock-solid reliability, and lead the technical delivery of a high-performance online gambling product.

Working closely with the CEO, you’ll help shape the technology roadmap and scale a world-class iGaming platform. This role is designed for an ambitious, high-impact engineer-leader who thrives in fast-moving environments, embraces AI-native development, and is ready to take on meaningful ownership.

Key Responsibilities

Technology & Engineering Strategy

• You’ll play a central role in shaping and executing the technology roadmap, aligning engineering with product and commercial goals. Acting as a trusted technical partner to the CEO, you’ll surface risks, opportunities, and key trade-offs across the platform.
• You’ll stay ahead of trends in iGaming, tooling, and regulation - translating them into practical improvements - and champion AI-assisted development across the team, from code generation and testing to documentation and incident response.

Platform & Product Delivery

• You’ll own end-to-end delivery of the core platform: player accounts and wallets, game engine, bonus systems, CRM tools, and back-office systems. Your focus will be on building a platform that is scalable, resilient, and high-performing under real-time, high-concurrency conditions.
• You’ll also lead integrations with live dealer studios, payment providers, KYC/AML services, and risk tools -ensuring clean, flexible architectures - while partnering closely with product to turn roadmaps into predictable, high-quality releases.

Security, Compliance & Reliability

• You’ll ensure the platform meets the demands of regulated gambling environments, implementing robust KYC, AML, responsible gaming, and fraud prevention systems.
• You’ll uphold strong cybersecurity and data protection standards - covering secure development, encryption, access control, and disaster recovery - and support audits and regulatory reviews with confidence.

Team Leadership

• You’ll lead and grow a multidisciplinary team across engineering, QA, DevOps, and data, building a culture of accountability, high standards, and continuous improvement.
• From hiring top talent to mentoring future leaders, you’ll ensure the team is aligned, empowered, and consistently delivering at a high level across distributed locations.

Delivery, Operations & Infrastructure

• You’ll own and evolve the full SDLC, from agile delivery to CI/CD pipelines, automated testing, and incident management.
• By defining and tracking key platform metrics (availability, latency, deployment frequency, error rates), you’ll drive continuous improvement while ensuring smooth production operations and cost-efficient infrastructure at scale.

Vendors & Integrations

• You’ll manage technical relationships with key partners - live dealer studios, payment providers, aggregators, and cloud vendors - ensuring integrations are robust, flexible, and strategically aligned.
• You’ll also contribute to the technical side of commercial agreements, including SLAs, data flows, and integration responsibilities.
• Data & Analytics
• You’ll support the evolution of their data platform, including event pipelines, warehousing, and real-time analytics.
• Leveraging data and emerging AI/ML capabilities, you’ll help drive personalisation, optimise player experience, and enable smarter decision-making across the business.

Experience & Qualifications

• You bring strong hands-on engineering experience and a proven path into leadership - whether as an Engineering Manager, Head of Engineering, or similar.
• You have a strong background and understanding of Poker.
• You have a solid grasp of distributed systems and modern cloud architectures, including microservices and event-driven design. Experience with payments, wallets, or game integrations is advantageous.
• You’re comfortable working in AI-native environments, actively using AI tools to accelerate development and team productivity.
• You understand security, data protection, and compliance in regulated environments, and have experience building and leading distributed teams.
• A degree in computer science or a related field is preferred, or equivalent experience in a high-growth tech environment.
• Familiarity with their stack is a bonus: Node.js, NestJS, MongoDB, Redis, Socket.io, mediasoup, Next.js, React, Kubernetes (Helm), Dolby, and AWS S3.

Personal Attributes

• You’re ambitious and ready for a step up- eager to take ownership and grow into a larger leadership role.
• You think AI-first, using modern tools to move faster, build smarter, and increase impact.
• You communicate clearly and confidently with both technical and non-technical stakeholders, balancing speed with quality - you ship, learn, and improve continuously.
• Above all, you bring integrity and a strong sense of responsibility when building technology in a regulated, player-facing environment.