Mike Seavers

A fireside chat from the Online Services Summit on engineering leadership at scale.

Mike Seavers, SVP of Technology at Scopely and a veteran technical leader from Riot Games and Epic Games, joins hosts Eden Chen (CEO, Pragma) and Kevin Zhang (Partner, Upfront Ventures) for an unfiltered discussion on engineering leadership at scale. Seavers describes Epic’s explosive growth from 300 to 5,000 employees as “Riot scaling on steroids,” a hypergrowth period where decades-old engineering practices shattered overnight. Scaling faster than your culture can adapt, he says, takes humility and a complete rethinking of how technical teams operate.

The conversation turns to the leadership tactics that separate high-impact executives from those who flame out. How do you lead engineers smarter than you? Seavers advocates for technical curiosity, regular mentorship, and relentlessly asking “how can I help you?” On AI, he issues a stark warning: engineers who aren’t learning it now will be irrelevant within a decade, and he demonstrates by building a WebAssembly Asteroids clone in two hours using nothing but prompts.

Mike Seavers is SVP of Technology at Scopely, with over 25 years of experience scaling world-class gaming franchises and platforms. Previously he served as CTO at Riot Games, EVP of Development at Epic Games (leading Fortnite, Unreal Engine, and Epic Games Store teams), and CTO at Yuga Labs. A graduate of MIT Sloan School of Management, he is known for driving technical innovation in hypergrowth environments.

Discussion points#

• (00:00) Building technical leadership muscle, the evolution from engineer to executive, and building trust with teams smarter than you
• (28:47) The maturity gap in North American game development, why the industry needs a pragmatic business approach, and the cultural shifts required when companies scale faster than their processes
• (53:36) Practical management tactics, combating imposter syndrome, why offloading burdens creates successful careers, and the outsourcing playbook from enterprise software
• (58:41) AI’s inflection point, why engineers who ignore AI will be left behind, vibe coding in practice, and the coming revolution of dynamically generated gameplay