About the role
Company Overview
Estoty, founded in 2012 in Riga, Latvia, expanded with a second studio in Vilnius, Lithuania, in 2014. Estoty is a creative video game developer crafting games across PC, mobile, and VR. With a portfolio of over 50 successful titles, including Johnny Trigger, 2048, Knife Hit, Idle Breakers, West Escape, Raptor Evolution, Age of Sails, and My Little Universe. Collectively, games have been downloaded more than 2 billion times.
Role
Hands-on CTO to shape technology strategy and lead the development of game backend systems, shared services, infrastructure, and internal platforms. This is a senior technical leadership role combining strategic ownership with hands-on engineering to define technical direction, drive architectural decisions, establish engineering standards, and solve complex technical challenges.
Responsibilities
- Technology strategy, architecture, and technical roadmap across the company.
- Game backend systems and shared GameTech services, including Nakama, GameKit, and other common services.
- UA technology and integrations, including advertising network integrations and creative management systems.
- Internal platforms and tools, including back-office systems, helpdesk, and automation solutions.
- Infrastructure reliability, security, and cost efficiency across AWS and Google Cloud.
- Engineering standards and processes covering development, testing, releases, documentation, monitoring, and incident management.
- Technical leadership and team development, including mentoring engineers and helping shape the engineering organization.
- Critical technical initiatives, taking ownership of complex projects and making pragmatic architectural decisions.
Requirements
- Previous experience as a CTO, Head/VP of Engineering, Principal Engineer, or Technical Director.
- Strong hands-on expertise in backend development and distributed systems architecture.
- Solid knowledge of Golang; experience with Nakama is a strong plus.
- Practical experience with AWS, containers, PostgreSQL/MySQL, message queues, and caching systems.
- Strong understanding of security, IAM, observability, incident management, and disaster recovery.
- Experience leading engineering teams and planning technical work around business priorities.
- A hands-on mindset and willingness to dive into complex systems personally when needed.
- Ability to make pragmatic technical decisions and balance engineering quality with business impact.
Nice to Have
- Experience in mobile gaming or live-service products.
- Familiarity with Laravel, React/Vue, Node.js, and Google Cloud.
- Experience with IAM, multi-tenant systems, and advertising integrations.
- Experience building shared platforms and infrastructure used by multiple products or teams.
About You
- Ability to connect strategy with hands-on engineering.
- Capable of simplifying complex systems, identifying necessary changes, and modernizing technology incrementally.
- Comfortable operating at both the strategic long-term level and the detailed implementation level.
- Strong communicator focused on building reliable, scalable technology.
Offer
- Salary: 2500 - 4500 EUR (bruto) depending on experience.
- Full-time position: 09:00-18:00.
- Friendly atmosphere and emphasis on interpersonal relationships.
- Opportunity to contribute to global mobile games.
Benefits
- Modern office.
- Extensive health insurance.
- Personal growth & trainings.
- Free lunch, snacks & drinks.
- Sport activities.
- Experience exchange.
- Full taxes and social warranties.
- Competitive salary.
Workplace Details
- Location: Riga, Latvia.
- Type: Full-time (on-site).
- Languages: Latviešu, English.