Electronic Arts Inc

Principal Founding Engineer, AI-Native Product Incubation

Electronic Arts Inc$193K — $296K *
Consumer Technology
8 - 10 years of experience
Job Overview by Ladders

Qualifications

  • 10+ years of experience building and shipping full-stack products from concept to launch.
  • Strong software engineering skills across frontend, backend, cloud infrastructure, and distributed systems.
  • Proven ability to operate independently with limited guidance on technical decisions.
  • Experience designing scalable architectures and modern cloud-native systems.
  • Familiarity with AI-assisted development tools and AI-native engineering workflows.
  • Strong problem-solving and communication skills.
  • Passion for building products from the ground up with a keen understanding of scaling.

Responsibilities

  • Architect and build end-to-end product experiences across web, mobile, backend, and cloud infrastructure.
  • Establish scalable technical foundations to support rapid experimentation.
  • Operate multiple AI coding agents to accelerate product development.
  • Translate product concepts into high-quality, working software.
  • Evolve prototypes into production-ready systems that can grow with user adoption.
  • Share technical learnings and best practices to enhance EA Ventures' engineering playbook.

Benefits

  • 3 weeks of paid time off per year, plus 80 hours of sick time and 16 paid holidays.
  • 10 weeks of paid parental leave.
  • Medical, dental, and vision insurance.
  • Life and disability insurance.
  • 401(k) plan with company contributions.
  • Opportunities for bonus and equity in certain roles.
Full Job Description
Description & Requirements

Founding Engineer

The future of entertainment is interactive, and our Ventures Group plays an important role in this future by building content, culture, and community that take us Beyond Gaming.

Beyond our existing franchises, Ventures is focused on incubating bold new ideas - exploring emerging technologies, new platforms, and entirely new forms of interactive entertainment.
What We're Building

We're launching a new wave of incubation within EA - small, highly autonomous teams exploring 0 1 product opportunities.

As a Founding Engineer , you'll partner directly with a Product Founder to rapidly prototype, launch, and scale new ventures. This is not a traditional engineering role focused on a single component or service. You'll be responsible for architecting and building entire products - from frontend (web and native mobile) experiences to backend systems, infrastructure, AI integrations, and operational tooling.

You'll leverage modern AI-native development workflows to dramatically increase velocity while maintaining a high bar for quality, scalability, and user experience.
What You'll Do
Architect and Build New Products
  • Design and develop end-to-end product experiences across web, mobile, backend services, and cloud infrastructure.
  • Establish scalable technical foundations that enable rapid experimentation without sacrificing long-term maintainability.
  • Make pragmatic architectural decisions that balance speed, quality, and future growth.
Lead AI-Native Development
  • Operate multiple AI coding agents and development tools to accelerate product development.
  • Develop workflows that combine human judgment with AI-assisted implementation, testing, debugging, and iteration.
  • Continuously evaluate emerging AI tooling and integrate it into the product development process.
Own Technical Execution
  • Translate product concepts into working software with exceptional speed and quality.
  • Build APIs, services, data pipelines, frontend (web and native mobile) experiences, and supporting infrastructure as needed.
  • Maintain a strong focus on performance, reliability, security, and scalability.
Scale Successful Ventures
  • Evolve prototypes into production-ready systems capable of supporting growth.
  • Implement observability, monitoring, deployment pipelines, and operational best practices.
  • Continuously improve architecture as products mature and user adoption increases.
Contribute to the Ventures Playbook
  • Share technical learnings, AI workflows, architectural patterns, and development practices across EA Ventures.
  • Help establish new ways of building products that can be replicated across future incubation efforts.
What You Bring
  • 10+ years of experience building and shipping full-stack products from concept to launch.
  • Strong software engineering fundamentals across frontend (web and native mobile), backend, cloud infrastructure, and distributed systems.
  • Proven ability to operate independently and make high-quality technical decisions with limited guidance.
  • Experience designing scalable architectures and modern cloud-native systems.
  • Familiarity with AI-assisted development tools and excitement about AI-native engineering workflows.
  • Ability to move quickly while maintaining strong engineering judgment.
  • Excellent problem-solving and communication skills.
  • Passion for building products from 0 1 1 and a strong understanding how to scale to millions of users
Bonus Points
  • Startup or founding engineer experience.
  • Experience building consumer-facing applications in gaming, sports, social, media, or entertainment.
  • Experience building AI-powered products, agents, orchestration systems, or LLM-based applications.
  • Familiarity with modern mobile development ecosystems.
  • Experience with cloud platforms, CI/CD, observability, and production operations.
  • Experience scaling products from prototype through growth stages up to millions of users.
Why Join Us
  • Build entirely new products from scratch with the backing of EA's resources, reach, and expertise.
  • Work in a small, highly autonomous team where your decisions directly shape the product and business.
  • Leverage cutting-edge AI tooling and help define the future of software development within EA.
  • Contribute to a portfolio of new ventures that could become the next generation of interactive entertainment experiences.
5-Bullet Summary
  • Partner with a Product Founder to build and launch new 01 ventures , owning the technical architecture and implementation from day one.
  • Design and develop full-stack products , spanning frontend (web and native mobile), backend, infrastructure, AI integrations, and operational systems.
  • Leverage multiple AI coding agents and AI-native workflows to dramatically accelerate product development and experimentation.
  • Create scalable, production-ready architectures that can evolve from prototype to successful consumer product.
  • Share technical learnings and best practices to help establish EA Ventures' broader incubation and engineering playbook.


Pay Transparency - North America

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

* California (depending on location e.g. Los Angeles vs. San Francisco) *$193,100 - $296,500 USD

Pay is just one part of the overall compensation at EA.

In the US, we offer a package of benefits including paid time off (3 weeks per year to start), 80 hours per year of sick time, 16 paid company holidays per year, 10 weeks paid time off to bond with baby, medical/dental/vision insurance, life insurance, disability insurance, and 401(k) to regular full-time employees. Certain roles may also be eligible for bonus and equity.

Post To

External careers site, Internal careers site

LinkedInID

1449

About Electronic Arts Inc

Electronic Arts Inc. (EA) is a global leader in digital interactive entertainment. The company develops and publishes games, content, and online services for consoles, mobile devices, and personal computers. EA's portfolio includes popular franchises such as FIFA, Madden NFL, The Sims, and Battlefield. The company was founded in 1982 and is headquartered in Redwood City, California.
Learn more about Electronic Arts Inc
Size
12,900 employees
Market Cap
$33.3 billion
Industry
Net Income
$1.1 billion
Founded
1982
5 Year Trend
+7.6%
Revenue
$5.6 billion
NASDAQ

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