Service Operations Engineer – Live Services

Creative Assembly is looking for an experienced Service Operations Engineer to join our Live Services team based at our headquarters in Horsham, in the heart of West Sussex.

In this exciting role, the successful candidate will be responsible for the support of company-wide online services as 2nd Tier and continuous improvement of production environment integrity. Working alongside the Software Engineers, Quality Engineering and Product Managers, you will help to ensure the game teams deliver their games on time with the services required.

Flexible working at Creative Assembly includes hybrid, fully remote within country of employment for eligible roles, and in-studio. We recognise that there is no one-size-fits-all approach and empower our teams to define the working patterns which work best for them, which may mean different things for different teams and roles and at different times.

This role can be offered as hybrid, in-studio or fully remote within country of employment. Further details can be discussed during the recruitment process.

Key Responsibilities
 
You will be key in developing test frameworks, test infrastructure and automating test scenarios, and help accelerate all aspects of product development, pipelines, tooling.
 
On a day-to-day basis, you will:

• Diagnose and resolve production incidents
• Support production environment integrity (services should be available for players, environment should be comfortable for developers and delivery of apps code etc)
• Escalate and route incidents and requests to other teams and tiers if needed
• Improve production environment, automate day-to-day tasks and production tools
• Provide mentorship and guidance to 1st Tier support team
• Provide consultation for development teams about best practices in service operation area
• Help development teams with dev/test environments.

Knowledge, Skill and Experience 

Essential

• Understanding of ITIL practices (Event, Incident, Problem, Change, Configuration)
• Professional work experience with Unix/Linux (especially Ubuntu) and system administration related tasks
• Basic understanding of Windows Server (2016/2019)
• Experience with AWS stack or similar cloud environment
• Monitoring tools (e.g. Prometheus, Grafana)
• Understanding of CI/CD methodology and experience with its tooling (e.g. GitLab, Infrastructure as Code)
• Working experience with Bash and at least one scripting language: Python, Golang, Perl etc.
• Networking systems and technologies: TCP/IP, DNS, SSH, HTTP etc.
• Experience with applications system analysis tools (Strace, Top etc.)
• Passionate about automation (e.g. Terraform, Ansible)
• Expertise in analysing and troubleshooting large-scale distributed systems
• Experience in providing mentorship and guidance to other team members
• Experience making solid technical direction decisions
• System and critical thinking mindset.

Desirable

• Experience in Gaming industry
• Working with a high throughput online service.

About Creative Assembly

It’s an exciting time to be a part of our craft-led studio as we push boundaries, creating deep and detailed experiences that last. 

Our teams are diverse from across the world, from trainees to industry veterans who constantly challenge us and make sure we are striving for the best within our games and our studio life. We are united through our shared values of Quality, Focus, Teamwork, Respect and Trust and we win awards for our culture and our people-centric approach, having won a Best Place to Work Award for six consecutive years. We invest in our people, the studio, and our projects. We are a company that’s secure and safe – you don’t need to worry about job security at CA.

We’ll give you the creative freedom, tools, support, and development to achieve your potential. 

Our studios are based in Horsham, UK and Sofia, Bulgaria, including several bespoke state-of-the-art audio suites and a dedicated motion capture facility.

We offer many benefits to support you and your family including:

• Flexible working: hybrid, fully remote within country of employment for eligible roles, and in-studio working
• Work from Anywhere for a temporary period each year (restrictions apply such as VISAs)
• Enhanced holiday allowance, maternity and paternity breaks, flexibility with our core hours, and no-notice holidays
• Bespoke relocation package for you and your dependents, with support throughout the process from our dedicated Relocation Specialists
• Private medical and dental insurance, life insurance, permanent health insurance, critical illness cover and free health care screening
• Generous holiday allowance plus full studio closure over the Christmas and New Year period, and all UK Bank holidays
• Annual discretionary studio bonus
• Join our award-winning education and social responsibility programme; the Legacy Project, as an industry ambassador to mentor and educate others
• Defined career development pathways and personalised training support including SEGA Dev Day, internal masterclasses, prestigious creative workshops, on-site training with renowned specialists and global conference attendance
• Opportunity to join our Diversity and Inclusion Network – an employee-led group
• Season ticket travel loans and cycle to work scheme with free bike servicing and discounted car valet service on site
• Free games and merchandise plus access to our extensive games library
• Free breakfast in the studio every day - toast, bagels, pancakes, cereals, yoghurts, fresh fruit, smoothies, juices, milkshakes and more in our fully stocked kitchen
• Wellbeing support with an employee assistance programme and onsite confidential sessions
• In-studio heavily subsidised massage therapy
• Discounts for home technology, travel insurance, corporate gym membership, cinema tickets, holidays, trips out and Ikea vouchers, and many local businesses including estate agents
• Studio parties for you and your family; such as our Summer Festival, Christmas Party plus a separate Children’s Christmas Party. We also have Cinema days and wrap parties for game releases
• Studio community activities such as life drawing, creative writing, Pilates, Walking Challenges, Couch to 5k, basketball, game and movie evenings, board game club, 5-a-side football, CA Choir, Sword fighting (yes, sword fighting) and loads more.

Our studio sites have disabled access. We are an equal opportunities employer and encourage applications from suitably qualified and eligible candidates regardless of sex, race, disability, age, sexual orientation, gender reassignment, marriage or civil partnership, pregnancy or maternity, religion or belief.