Lead Software Engineer

Lead Software Engineer

Scientific Games:

Scientific Games is the global leader in lottery games, sports betting and technology, and the partner of choice for government lotteries. From cutting-edge backend systems to exciting entertainment experiences and trailblazing retail and digital solutions, we elevate play every day. We push game designs to the next level and are pioneers in data analytics and iLottery. Built on a foundation of trusted partnerships, Scientific Games combines relentless innovation, legendary performance, and unwavering security to responsibly propel the global lottery industry ever forward.

Position Summary

Responsibilities

Software Development

Lead the design, architecture, and delivery of large-scale Java backend services, REST APIs, and distributed systems across multiple product components. Drive technical execution from concept through production, ensuring solutions align with enterprise architecture standards, scalability objectives, and business goals.

Software Maintenance

Own the overall technical health of the platform by driving proactive maintenance strategies, technical debt reduction initiatives, modernization efforts, and continuous reliability improvements. Lead the resolution of critical production issues and establish preventive measures to minimize operational risk.

Architecture & Design

Define and govern architecture standards, integration patterns, API design principles, and development best practices across the engineering organization. Lead architectural reviews, evaluate emerging technologies, and make strategic technology recommendations that improve platform capability, scalability, and maintainability.

Quality & Security

Champion engineering excellence across teams by establishing quality standards, testing strategies, security frameworks, and performance benchmarks. Ensure compliance with OWASP standards, regulatory requirements, and enterprise security policies applicable to gaming and lottery systems.

Leadership & Stakeholder Collaboration

 

Act as the primary technical advisor for product, business, and customer-facing teams. Provide technical leadership for strategic initiatives, guide engineering roadmaps, mentor senior engineers, and foster a culture of collaboration, innovation, and continuous improvement.

 

Authorities

 

• Define and approve technical solutions, architecture approaches, and engineering standards across the team's product portfolio.
• Lead architectural reviews and make technology recommendations for strategic initiatives.
• Make design and implementation decisions impacting multiple services, teams, or product areas.
• Influence product roadmaps by identifying technical opportunities, risks, and dependencies.
• Mentor Senior, Software, and Associate Engineers and provide technical leadership across projects.
• Recommend process, tooling, and organizational improvements to enhance engineering effectiveness and product quality.
• Drive technical hiring, interview processes, and engineering capability development.

Key Tasks

 

• Define solution architectures for complex business initiatives spanning multiple systems and services.
• Lead the design and implementation of enterprise-scale Java and Quarkus-based platforms and integrations.
• Establish technical standards for API design, microservices architecture, security, observability, and performance.
• Drive technical roadmaps, modernization initiatives, and platform evolution strategies.
• Lead architectural reviews and approve major design decisions across projects.
• Provide technical leadership during critical production incidents and major customer escalations.
• Collaborate with Product Managers, Architects, DevOps, Security, and other engineering teams to align technical solutions with strategic objectives.
• Identify, prioritize, and drive reduction of technical debt across the platform.
• Lead code quality initiatives, engineering best practices, and continuous improvement programs.
• Coach and mentor engineers at all levels; support career growth and technical capability development.
• Contribute to workforce planning, recruitment, technical assessments, and onboarding of engineers.
• Drive improvements in CI/CD, cloud adoption, automation, operational readiness, and platform observability.
• Support strategic customer engagements, pre-sales activities, proposal reviews, and technical workshops.
• Represent the engineering organization in architecture forums, leadership discussions, and company-wide technical initiatives.
• Provide on-call leadership support for critical platform issues as required.
• Work abroad as required by projects, up to three times per year for a total of up to six weeks or as otherwise agreed.

General Tasks

 

• • Drive continuous improvement initiatives across engineering processes, development practices, tooling, and platform architecture.
• • Provide technical leadership and guidance to engineering teams, ensuring alignment with architectural standards, business objectives, and technology strategy.
• • Identify and proactively manage technical risks, dependencies, and architectural challenges that may impact delivery or platform stability.
• • Lead technical planning activities, including roadmap discussions, backlog prioritization, capacity planning, and release strategy.
• • Facilitate collaboration between Product Management, Architecture, Security, DevOps, QA, and Engineering teams to ensure successful delivery of business initiatives.
• • Promote engineering excellence by establishing and reinforcing best practices for software design, development, testing, security, observability, and operational readiness.
• • Monitor and improve team effectiveness through coaching, mentoring, knowledge sharing, and capability development initiatives.
• • Act as an escalation point for complex technical issues, production incidents, and architectural decisions.
• • Drive technical debt reduction, platform modernization, and continuous improvement initiatives across product areas.
• • Participate in architecture review boards, technical governance forums, and company-wide engineering initiatives.
• • Support strategic planning by evaluating emerging technologies, development methodologies, and platform capabilities.
• • Establish and maintain technical documentation standards, ensuring architectural decisions, design patterns, and operational procedures are effectively documented.
• • Lead recruitment activities including technical interviews, candidate assessment, onboarding, and mentoring of new engineers.
• • Foster an inclusive, collaborative, and psychologically safe engineering culture that encourages innovation, accountability, and continuous learning.
• • Represent the engineering organization in customer workshops, technical reviews, partner engagements, and pre-sales activities as required.
• • Ensure compliance with Scientific Games' information security, data protection, regulatory, and responsible gaming requirements.
• • Designate appropriate technical ownership and ensure effective knowledge transfer, succession planning, and operational continuity during planned absences.
• • Encourage and support participation in internal communities of practice, engineering guilds, architecture forums, and knowledge-sharing programs.
• • Contribute to organizational engineering strategy through leadership of cross-team initiatives, technology transformation programs, and platform standardization efforts.
• • Maintain awareness of industry trends, emerging technologies, and regulatory developments relevant to software engineering, gaming, and lottery platforms.

 

 

Qualifications

SG is an Equal Opportunity Employer and does not discriminate against applicants due to race, color, sex, age, national origin, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity, status as a veteran, and basis of disability or any other federal, state or local protected class. If you’d like more information about your equal employment opportunity rights as an applicant under the law, please click here for EEOC Poster.

Experience Level

Senior Level