Lead Systems Software Engineer

Description & Requirements
Electronic Arts creates next-level entertainment experiences that inspire players and fans around the world. Here, everyone is part of the story. Part of a community that connects across the globe. A place where creativity thrives, new perspectives are invited, and ideas matter. A team where everyone makes play happen.

The EA SPORTS UFC franchise delivers the spectacle, intensity, and authenticity of MMA to tens of millions of players worldwide. Our team is on a mission to become the world's greatest fighting game. If you're passionate about building immersive digital entertainment, this is the role of a lifetime.

As a Lead Systems Software Engineer, you will help define, deliver, and evolve the foundational engine and technology systems that enable performance, scalability, and creative freedom across all domains, gameplay, animation, rendering, online, front end, and tools.

This role blends hands-on engineering with technical leadership. You'll work on challenging problems while also taking broad technical ownership, collaborating across teams, and enabling others to succeed.

You will be working on a hybrid model, 3 days a week out of our EAV Studio in Burnaby, British Columbia.

Your Impact

Be the Technical Glue

• Act as a trusted technical partner across the team, helping engineers understand platform capabilities, engine behavior, and system-level trade-offs.
• Enable other domains to design and ship better features by providing guidance, solutions, and shared systems that scale across the game.

Lead Systems & Engine Evolution

• Help define and drive engine, codebase, platform, automation, and release strategies in partnership with technical leadership.
• Drive improvements in performance, memory usage, load times, stability, and developer workflows through well-designed foundational systems.

Own Delivery & Technical Quality

• Take responsibility for the successful delivery of systems initiatives, including planning, risk identification, and execution.
• Define, track, and uphold technical KPIs related to performance, memory, stability, and maintainability across platforms.
• Ensure systems land predictably, scale effectively, and support both development and live service needs.

Collaborate Beyond the Team

• Build strong working relationships with other franchise systems teams and central engine teams, sharing solutions, best practices, and lessons learned.
• Bring insights and improvements back to the team to continuously raise the technical bar.

Required
Your Qualifications

• 5+ years of professional software engineering experience, including work on large-scale or performance-sensitive systems.
• Strong experience with C++ and large, complex codebases.
• Solid understanding of systems-level concepts such as performance, memory management, multithreading, and platform constraints.
• Experience working in or alongside game engines or real-time systems.
• Proven ability to deliver complex technical systems end-to-end with quality and predictability.
• A collaborative, support-oriented mindset with the ability to communicate clearly across disciplines.

Preferred

• Exposure to tooling, build systems, automation, or multi-platform development.
• Interest in growing technical leadership responsibilities and influencing long-term strategy.
• Experience or interest in using AI tools to accelerate development, testing, or operations workflows.

Why Join Us

• Play a foundational role in a franchise enjoyed by tens of millions of players globally
• Influence nearly every technical domain without being confined to a single feature area
• Help define long-term engine, platform, and systems strategy
• Grow as a technical leader while remaining close to hands-on engineering
• Work with a collaborative, passionate team building one of the world's premier fighting games

Compensation And Benefits
The ranges listed below are what EA in good faith expects to pay applicants for this role in these locations at the time of this posting. If you reside in a different location, a recruiter will advise on the applicable range and benefits. Pay offered will be determined based on a number of relevant business and candidate factors (e.g. education, qualifications, certifications, experience, skills, geographic location, or business needs).

PAY RANGES

• British Columbia (depending on location e.g. Vancouver vs. Victoria) *$119,600 - $167,300 CAD

In British Columbia, we offer a package of benefits including vacation (3 weeks per year to start), 10 days per year of sick time, paid top-up to EI/QPIP benefits up to 100% of base salary when you welcome a new child (12 weeks for maternity, and 4 weeks for parental/adoption leave), extended health/dental/vision coverage, life insurance, disability insurance, retirement plan to regular full-time employees. Certain roles may also be eligible for bonus and equity.

About Electronic Arts
We're proud to have an extensive portfolio of games and experiences, locations around the world, and opportunities across EA. We value adaptability, resilience, creativity, and curiosity. From leadership that brings out your potential, to creating space for learning and experimenting, we empower you to do great work and pursue opportunities for growth.

We adopt a holistic approach to our benefits programs, emphasizing physical, emotional, financial, career, and community wellness to support a balanced life. Our packages are tailored to meet local needs and may include healthcare coverage, mental well-being support, retirement savings, paid time off, family leaves, complimentary games, and more. We nurture environments where our teams can always bring their best to what they do.

Electronic Arts is an equal opportunity employer. All employment decisions are made without regard to race, color, national origin, ancestry, sex, gender, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, age, genetic information, religion, disability, medical condition, pregnancy, marital status, family status, veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by law. We will also consider employment qualified applicants with criminal records in accordance with applicable law. EA also makes workplace accommodations for qualified individuals with disabilities as required by applicable law.