Job description

At Netflix, our mission is to entertain the world. Together, we are writing the next episode - pushing the boundaries of storytelling, global fandom and making the unimaginable a reality. We are a dream team obsessed with the uncomfortable excitement of discovering what happens when you merge creativity, intuition and cutting-edge technology. Come be a part of what’s next. Netflix is building a cloud gaming platform - a feat achieved by only a handful of industry leaders. This is a foundational, high-visibility role at the center of that effort. The Director, Cloud Gaming Infrastructure will lead the team responsible for the operating system software, hardware, control plane, and transport that power Netflix's cloud games experience, delivering engaging, low-latency gameplay to members at scale while driving toward sustainable unit economics. This role oversees a significant hardware investment supporting massive concurrent user scale, and is directly accountable for the technical and operational success of one of Netflix's key growth bets. Responsibilities • Own the strategy, architecture, and roadmap for cloud gaming infrastructure, spanning the Game OS, cloud gaming software stack, telemetry, control plane, and transport. • Lead and grow the engineering organization responsible for building and operating this infrastructure, including hiring into open technical leadership and IC roles. • Partner closely with hardware, OS, encoding, capacity planning, and SRE/Ops functions to deliver an end-to-end, reliable platform. • Drive the technical and economic innovation required to make cloud gaming viable at scale — this role is expected to find approaches that others have not. • Serve as the primary technical bridge between Infrastructure, Games Platform, and Games Studio, representing infrastructure capabilities and constraints in product and studio planning conversations. • Collaborate with peer leaders across Infrastructure and Games Platform teams to ensure coherent, well-integrated systems. • Set technical direction and quality bar for a domain with no established industry playbook, making judgment calls in the absence of proven patterns. • Report on infrastructure health, cost, and scaling risk to senior leadership, and translate business goals (member growth, engagement, unit economics) into infrastructure priorities. Minimum Qualifications • Proven track record leading large-scale distributed systems engineering teams, ideally spanning software, hardware, and network/transport layers. • Deep technical expertise in one or more of: cloud infrastructure at scale, real-time/low-latency media delivery, game development, control planes. • Experience owning infrastructure with significant capital investment (hardware fleets, data center capacity) and being accountable for its economics, not just its uptime. • Demonstrated ability to operate in ambiguous, emerging domains without established best practices, and to make sound technical bets under uncertainty. • Strong track record of cross-functional partnership with Product, Data Science, and adjacent Engineering orgs, including influencing without direct authority across dotted-line and peer relationships. • Experience managing and developing engineering managers and senior ICs, with the judgment to grow a team while augmenting individual skills with AI tooling. • Excellent communication skills, with the ability to represent complex infrastructure tradeoffs clearly to both technical peers and senior/executive stakeholders. Preferred / Desired Experience • Prior experience in console gaming, cloud gaming, game streaming, or interactive real-time media (e.g., WebRTC, game streaming protocols, encoding/transport optimization). • Background at a company that has built a large-scale gaming or media-streaming platform (e.g., console manufacturers, cloud gaming providers, video/live-streaming infrastructure teams). • Experience standing up or significantly scaling a new platform or product line from an early or emerging stage. • Familiarity with CDN or edge infrastructure economics, capacity planning, and fleet-level cost optimization. • Experience working within a company where infrastructure investment decisions are closely tied to a broader strategic "growth bet," requiring comfort with high visibility and high stakes. Desired Qualities • Bias toward innovative, economically-disciplined solutions over "brute force" scale — this role is expected to help crack a problem the industry has not yet solved. • Comfortable operating as both a builder and a bridge: equally effective setting deep technical direction and representing the team in cross-org strategic conversations. • High ownership mentality; treats the platform's success (and the underlying business bet) as personally accountable outcomes. • Strong people-leadership instincts, especially the ability to develop a team that is growing quickly and still filling out its leadership bench. • Calm, structured decision-making in a fast-moving, still-forming domain. Generally, our compensation structure consists solely of an annual salary; we do not have bonuses. You choose each year how much of your compensation you want in salary versus stock options. To determine your personal top of market compensation, we rely on market indicators and consider your specific job family, background, skills, and experience to determine your compensation in the market range. The range for this role is $695,000.00 - $1,760,000.00. This compensation range will vary based on location. Netflix provides comprehensive benefits including Health Plans, Mental Health support, a 401(k) Retirement Plan with employer match, Stock Option Program, Disability Programs, Health Savings and Flexible Spending Accounts, Family-forming benefits, and Life and Serious Injury Benefits. We also offer paid leave of absence programs. Full-time hourly employees accrue 35 days annually for paid time off to be used for vacation, holidays, and sick paid time off. Full-time salaried employees are immediately entitled to flexible time off. See more details about our Benefits here . Netflix is a unique culture and environment. Learn more here . Inclusion is a Netflix value and we strive to host a meaningful interview experience for all candidates. If you want an accommodation/adjustment for a disability or any other reason during the hiring process, please send a request to your recruiting partner. We are an equal-opportunity employer and celebrate diversity, recognizing that diversity builds stronger teams. We approach diversity and inclusion seriously and thoughtfully. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, ancestry, national origin, caste, sex, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity or expression, age, disability, medical condition, pregnancy, genetic makeup, marital status, or military service. Job is open for no less than 7 days and will be removed when the position is filled.

Requirements

Must-haves

This role oversees a significant hardware investment supporting massive concurrent user scale, and is directly accountable for the technical and operational success of one of Netflix's key growth bets.
Own the strategy, architecture, and roadmap for cloud gaming infrastructure, spanning the Game OS, cloud gaming software stack, telemetry, control plane, and transport.
Lead and grow the engineering organization responsible for building and operating this infrastructure, including hiring into open technical leadership and IC roles.
Partner closely with hardware, OS, encoding, capacity planning, and SRE/Ops functions to deliver an end-to-end, reliable platform.
Drive the technical and economic innovation required to make cloud gaming viable at scale — this role is expected to find approaches that others have not.
Serve as the primary technical bridge between Infrastructure, Games Platform, and Games Studio, representing infrastructure capabilities and constraints in product and studio planning conversations.
Collaborate with peer leaders across Infrastructure and Games Platform teams to ensure coherent, well-integrated systems.
Set technical direction and quality bar for a domain with no established industry playbook, making judgment calls in the absence of proven patterns.
Report on infrastructure health, cost, and scaling risk to senior leadership, and translate business goals (member growth, engagement, unit economics) into infrastructure priorities.
Proven track record leading large-scale distributed systems engineering teams, ideally spanning software, hardware, and network/transport layers.
Deep technical expertise in one or more of: cloud infrastructure at scale, real-time/low-latency media delivery, game development, control planes.
Experience owning infrastructure with significant capital investment (hardware fleets, data center capacity) and being accountable for its economics, not just its uptime.
Demonstrated ability to operate in ambiguous, emerging domains without established best practices, and to make sound technical bets under uncertainty.
Strong track record of cross-functional partnership with Product, Data Science, and adjacent Engineering orgs, including influencing without direct authority across dotted-line and peer relationships.
Experience managing and developing engineering managers and senior ICs, with the judgment to grow a team while augmenting individual skills with AI tooling.
Excellent communication skills, with the ability to represent complex infrastructure tradeoffs clearly to both technical peers and senior/executive stakeholders.
Prior experience in console gaming, cloud gaming, game streaming, or interactive real-time media (e.g., WebRTC, game streaming protocols, encoding/transport optimization).
Background at a company that has built a large-scale gaming or media-streaming platform (e.g., console manufacturers, cloud gaming providers, video/live-streaming infrastructure teams).
Experience standing up or significantly scaling a new platform or product line from an early or emerging stage.
Familiarity with CDN or edge infrastructure economics, capacity planning, and fleet-level cost optimization.
Experience working within a company where infrastructure investment decisions are closely tied to a broader strategic "growth bet," requiring comfort with high visibility and high stakes.
Desired Qualities
Bias toward innovative, economically-disciplined solutions over "brute force" scale — this role is expected to help crack a problem the industry has not yet solved.

Nice-to-haves

Preferred / Desired Experience

Application prep

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Keywords to mirror

Platform: eightfold
Effort: medium

Benefits

Benefits detected in the listing.

401(K)

Paid Time Off