Principal Engineer, Security - Game Protection

Job Title:

Principal Engineer, Security - Game Protection 

Requisition ID:

R026561

Job Description:

Your Mission

Call of Duty is one of the most iconic and successful video game franchises in the world, delivering unforgettable experiences to millions of players. At the heart of that experience is fair play—and that’s where the Ricochet team comes in. We’re on a mission to detect and eliminate cheaters swiftly, ensuring every player enjoys a level playing field. 

As a Principal Engineer on the Game Protection team, you’ll be a key driver in designing and building cutting-edge systems that safeguard our game clients. Your work will directly protect the integrity of one of the most beloved franchises in gaming. 

What You’ll Do: 

• Innovate and Evolve: Design and implement advanced anti-cheat technologies to stay ahead of emerging threats. 
• Strengthen Core Systems: Analyze, update, and enhance existing protection frameworks to maintain top-tier security. 
• Detect and Defend: Investigate, develop, and deploy cheat detection mechanisms that keep gameplay fair and fun. 
• Collaborate Across Studios: Work closely with engineers across multiple teams to ensure seamless integration and performance. 

Why This Role Matters: Your contributions will help millions of players experience Call of Duty as it’s meant to be played—competitive, fair, and thrilling. You’ll tackle complex technical challenges, influence the future of anti-cheat technology, and make a real impact on one of the world’s largest gaming communities. 

Minimum Requirements:

• 15+ years of professional software development experience 
• Strong passion for delivering high-quality products 
• Proven experience architecting and implementing multiple versions of large-scale applications or services that span complex systems 
• Proficiency in C/C++ and Python 
• Ability to read and write x86_64 assembly 
• Knowledge of compiler theory and code obfuscation techniques 
• Experience working in an engineering organization with a focus on CI/CD, scalability, and automation 
• Advanced knowledge of algorithms and data structures 
• Expertise in optimization and debugging at scale 
• Clear and effective communication skills, both written and verbal 

Extra Points 

• Game development experience 
• Deep understanding or hands-on experience in the anti-cheat domain 
• Familiarity with Call of Duty game architecture and cheat ecosystem 
• Experience analyzing cheat software 
• Professional experience in Windows kernel development 
• Ability to read and write ARM64 assembly 
• DevOps experience 

Your Platform

Activision Central Tech works to support our development studios and their titles. Comprised of seven main teams, we have many specialties including big data, privacy and security, motion capture and animation pipeline technologies, graphics, build and infrastructure for studio development and data centers, optimization, systems programming and online services including matchmaking and networking. Central Tech is distributed globally with offices across the U.S., and in Canada, England, Ireland and Japan.

Most of our teams are comprised of both engineering and research talent, allowing us to always have an eye on the future. Our talented engineers help with title development and provide valuable knowledge sharing between studios while our researchers are action-oriented and keep a strong connection with the needs of the game studios.

Central Tech is part of Activision. To learn more about us and our research, please visit us at https://research.activision.com/.

Our World

At Activision, we strive to create the most iconic brands in