Principal Engineer - Game Innovation

What are we building? Hard Rock Digital is a team focused on becoming the best online sportsbook, casino, and social gaming company in the world. Backed by a brand known the world over for gaming, entertainment, and hospitality, we operate like a fast-moving startup with a passion for building products millions of people play. Our Games Studio is building the next generation of in-house casino content, and we are changing how that content gets made. We are building an AI-assisted development pipeline to design, build, and ship real-money games faster, and using it to go after formats the floor is not saturated with: Crash, Plinko, Mines, arcade-style games, skill-adjacent experiences, and formats that have not been invented yet. Two things at once: a new method for making all our games, and new kinds of games to make with it. What's the position? We are looking for a Principal Engineer, Game Innovation to be the technical lead for this effort. You will design and stand up the AI-assisted game development pipeline, own the architecture that takes a game from concept to a certified title live on our RGS, and build games on it yourself. You will pair with the Senior Producer, Game Innovation, who owns the product and the roadmap, while you own the technology and the build. This is a hands-on principal role, not a management track. You will write code, make the architectural calls, and set the engineering standard for how AI-built games get produced and shipped in a regulated environment. The first question, can AI build a game, is already answered by working prototypes. The harder question is whether we can build a real framework that produces games we would put in front of real players for real money. That is your problem to solve. Key Responsibilities Own the pipeline. Design and build the AI-assisted game development pipeline: a shared project with version control and CI/CD, agents that produce math, art, sound, and animation from a structured brief, automated evaluation gates, and a playable build the team can open from a link. Make it repeatable, so the second game is faster than the first. Own the architecture, front end to back end. Set the architecture for the game client and the back-end game server, including the round lifecycle, bet validation, outcome mapping against a certified RNG, wallet operations, reconciliation, RTP reporting, and the audit trail. Keep the math and the money server side. Integrate with our RGS. Lead the integration to Fingenuity, our RGS and RNG, and own the path that turns a candidate build into a certifiable, shippable title across jurisdictions. Build games, not just infrastructure. Stay hands-on. Prototype mechanics, build game clients and servers, and prove the pipeline by shipping real titles through it. Set the AI engineering standard. Define how we use AI-assisted tools and agents in game development: the conventions, the guardrails, the human review gates, and the automated checks that verify AI output before it advances. Nothing AI-generated ships uninspected. Choose the stack. Make the build, buy, and partner calls on engine, tooling, and infrastructure, and standardize the studio on choices that are strong for AI-assisted development and support the client and server model. Partner across the business. Work with platform engineering, compliance, and our RGS and third-party partners. Bring the studio's math, art, and production talent along, and keep the bar high on quality and speed. Raise the bar around you. Mentor engineers who join this effort, establish the code review culture, and document the patterns so the pipeline outlives any one person.