Director / Senior Director, Platform Software Engineering

Location: Hong Kong

Report to: CTO

The Role

As Director / Senior Director of Platform Software Engineering, you will own the software platform that powers every Nex Playground in the world — from the moment a family unboxes the device through years of daily play. You will lead end‑to‑end across PlayOS (our Android‑based device OS) and cloud services: OS that gives hardware life, OTA updates that reach a growing global fleet, the Play Pass subscription engine, and the compliance infrastructure that lets us launch in new countries with confidence. You will drive architectural direction, set engineering standards, and grow a high‑performing team. You'll stay hands‑on when it counts most and know when to let your leaders lead.

The Mindset

First‑principles, customer‑obsessed, decisive. Perseveres to the highest standards and challenges assumptions. Resilient through production incidents, coachable at every level. Grows engineers into owners and leaders. Empathetic, leads with trust, gives tough feedback, builds a culture of accountability. Executes with discipline — insists on engineering excellence to deliver reliable, secure outcomes at scale.

Success Looks Like

Millions of Playgrounds worldwide, reliably updated over the air. PlayOS that delights families from first unbox through years of daily play — across every market Nex enters. Standards that let the team ship fast with confidence. Strong leaders in your team across device and cloud who own outcomes independently. The platform behind every game, every feature, every market launch.

Key Responsibilities

Platform & Team Leadership

• Set platform software strategy in partnership with Product Design and company leadership
• Build a high‑performing engineering team — raise the engineering bar, grow engineers into owners and develop strong leaders
• Build Nex's in‑house platform engineering capability and DevOps practices, evolving from external partnerships to Nex‑led development

PlayOS Delivery

• Implement OS platform roadmap — balancing new capabilities with system health, performance, security, and compliance
• Guide the hardest trade‑offs across architecture, compatibility, and hardware integration
• Drive international compliance — children's privacy (GDPR, COPPA) and localization for every new territory

Cloud & Services

• Establish standards across cloud services, OTA pipelines, and the Play Pass subscription platform
• Ensure reliability, security, privacy, and operational excellence as the fleet scales globally
• Set high standards for observability, incident response, and continuous improvement

Must Have

• Experience leading teams delivering operating systems and cloud services in production at scale
• Proven people leadership: hires and builds high-performing teams, develops managers, and coaches individuals through clear feedback, growth plans, and high standards
• Strong technical judgment across device software and cloud systems — hands‑on when it matters
• Track record raising the bar on quality, reliability, security, privacy, and compliance
• Significant flexibility working across global timezones

Nice to Have

• Experience with subscription or commerce platforms
• Familiarity with reliability practices (SLOs, observability, incident response)
• Experience with consumer privacy regulations (GDPR, COPPA, or equivalent) in a shipped product
• Experience with connected devices and fleets
• Experience building products for kids or families
• Experience with hardware‑software integration and lifecycle support

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