[Hiring] Senior/Staff Backend Engineer @Thatgamecompany

Role Description

For “Sky: Children of the Light”, thatgamecompany has developed a real-time, multiplayer game server system capable of handling a massive amount of concurrent users. Providing a reliable and low latency experience for our players is a priority. We build, test, and maintain systems for account and login, resource scaling, seamless matchmaking, and live updates. We need your help developing and scaling these mission critical systems so that we can continue providing impactful multiplayer experiences to people around the globe.

• Design and implement large-scale, highly available backend microservices that serve millions of concurrent players. Aim for zero downtime.
• Monitor system health and quickly respond to any failures or glitches to deliver a smooth online experience to players worldwide.
• Improve quality through code reviews, expanded test coverage, technical post-mortems, improved documentation.
• Encourage collaboration and domain knowledge sharing; reducing bus factor is a feature.
• Work and iterate very closely with members of our (distributed, remote) Gameplay, Engine, and Ops teams.
• Design testable, flexible features & systems that can withstand frequent changes to functional and performance requirements.
• Deliver! Strike a deliberate balance between speed and quality.

Qualifications

• 8+ years experience working on the back-end for an MMO or high-volume, distributed, low-latency web services (relaxed slightly for Senior level).
• Fluency in both a functional language such as Erlang/Elixir and a multi-paradigm language such as Go.
• Strong opinions on the different approaches to managing network communication, resource scaling, automated deployment, security, reliability, and data tracking/analysis.
• Familiarity with creating unit tests, stress tests, and integration tests.
• Proficient with Linux, container-native development, CI/CD, GitOps, and debugging in network environments.
• Thorough understanding of the tradeoffs involved in building highly available, at-scale backend systems, caching strategies, and distributed systems.

Requirements

• (Shareable) hobby projects relevant to the role, e.g., a game engine, a networking app, a multiplayer game using an existing engine.
• Experience with Kubernetes, Helm, and Docker.
• Experience with UDP, bit-level serialization, delta compression, and other techniques for developing efficient network code for real-time games.
• Familiarity with performant C++ as our custom game engine is written in C++.
• Experience with both relational and NoSQL databases (PostgreSQL, MongoDB, Redis).

Benefits

• Paid Time Off, Holidays, and Two Weeks Winter Break.
• Employees and their dependents get medical, dental, and vision coverage, starting on the first day of the job.
• Pet Insurance for those who need it too.
• Compassionate leave for employees who need to take care of their family members.
• Pre-tax wellness stipend.
• Pre-tax work from home stipend.
• Access to our savings plan (401K program) with company match.
• Mental health resources including Headspace membership and Employee Assistance Program (CCA).
• Discount portal for everyday goods and services.
• Employee inclusive and diversity initiatives such as Grow Together.
• Support for personal professional development.