Head of Engineering
Pahdo Labs
Software Engineering
New York, NY, USA
USD 150k-225k / year
Posted on Mar 24, 2026
About Pahdo LabsWe are a gaming startup building an Anime-themed massively multiplayer dungeon building RPG game, blending the best qualities of top-notch action games, role-playing games, and game creation tools into one beautiful social experience. We have raised over $17.5M in seed and Series A funding from a16z GPs Andrew Chen, Jon Lai, and James Gwertzman, as well as BoxGroup, Neo, Pear, Zynga founder Mark Pincus, Kevin Hartz, and Cyan Banister. The RoleAs the Head of Engineering at Pahdo Labs, you will be tasked with leading and managing our engineering team. You’ll work directly with our technical CEO and core leadership team to develop our engineering roadmap and strategy as well as shape the direction of the wondrous and dream-like social and creative experience we are building for our players. We strive for a high standard of engineering quality and are solving unique software design and scalability challenges. You will have a significantly outsized impact as the Head of Engineering at a Series A gaming startup, joining and leading a team of engineers from Robinhood, Microsoft, Dropbox, Salesforce, and other top tech companies. Responsibilities- Develop our engineering roadmap and strategy alongside our core leadership team- Own technical design and drive implementation, making trade-offs as you work to ensure that our systems are scalable- Manage and mentor our engineering team, applying your expertise to guide the team through difficult engineering challenges; as necessary, write code alongside your team to develop context, support your team’s education, and ship key product features- Champion best practices and technical excellence across techniques, processes, smart tooling, etc. to minimize technical debt and improve developer productivity- Finish your mission and tasks with autonomy and be scrappy if necessary Required Qualifications- 7+ years of experience in an engineering role and 3+ years of experience in a lead / manager role- Strong written and verbal communications skills- Strong proficiency in programming, software patterns, principles, and architecture- Supplemental skills key for game development: math, creativity, UX intuition, experience with any game engines, etc.- Experience leading, mentoring, and guiding an engineering team Desired Qualifications- Familiarity with working with distributed systems and cloud infrastructure- Familiarity with modern programming languages such as Go, Python, Java, C++, etc.- Familiarity with modern database technologies such as PostgreSQL and NoSQL databases- Experience or willingness to learn modern game engines (Unity, Godot)- Experience working on large scale live service products, particularly games- Love of games, especially sandbox games like Minecraft, MMORPGs like World of Warcraft, and 2D isometric games like Dofus, Hades, and Tree of Savior Description of Your Work- You will be building a state-of-the-art massive multiplayer game which scales to 1000s of players on a single map and millions of concurrent players overall- You will grapple with software design trade-offs to engineer a game that is simultaneously secure from bad actors but also extremely smooth and performant- You will work in a modern software tech stack, using Go, Postgres, gRPC, Websocket, and an open-source game engine (Godot) Our Perks- Salary Range: $150,000 - $225,000- Unlimited paid time off with 2-week vacation minimum- 100% employer-paid medical, vision, and dental insurance for the employee- Competitive tech industry pay- Flexible and remote work culture If interested, please email us at hello@pahdolabs.com with a resume, and links to any portfolios that you can share!