Senior Backend Engineer – Distributed Systems and Payments

Job description: About the Role Do you want to build high-scale backend systems for gaming platforms using the latest technologies? Are you the kind of engineer who sweats the details, the race condition nobody else noticed, the retry that could double-charge a user, the edge case hiding in a timeout? Do you have your own opinions about how systems should be designed, and enjoy defending them with reason rather than rank? Do you like working with a tight-knit core team, tackling problems where early exploration becomes long-term wins for the studio? If that sounds like you, we would love to hear from you. We are a game development studio expanding from game development to operating our own gaming platform and we're looking for an engineer to build it with us from the ground up. This is a high-scope, greenfield role. There is no legacy system to babysit and no spec handed down from above. You will help define the architecture, make the trade-offs, and live with the consequences. The APIs you design will become long-term contracts for third-party integrators, and the accounting code you write will handle real money. Responsibilities Design and build the platform's core wallet/ledger system, ensuring transactional correctness and idempotency across the full transaction lifecycleDesign public-facing APIs for game studios and platform partners: authentication and request signing, error code conventions, versioning, callback and retry strategiesBuild high-concurrency real-time services: persistent connection management, low-latency transaction pipelines, capacity planning, and load testingDrive observability: monitoring and alerting, distributed tracing, production incident response and postmortemsShape the platform's technical direction: propose, challenge, and own architectural decisions, not just implement themSkills To Create Thrills Experience designing, building, and operating highly available, distributed, real-time live servicesExperience with multi-threaded and asynchronous processing at scaleExperience designing the overall architecture of end-to-end solutions and making trade-offsStrong relational database skills: transactions, isolation levels, locking, and indexing under concurrent loadExperience building transactional systems: payments, wallets, or ledgersGreat interpersonal skills and a consistent record of working in a collaborative team environmentPreferred / Nice to Have Strong Java fundamentals (we use Java 17 / Spring Boot 3.4)Prior experience building backend services like game servers, in-game economies or live opsSelf-motivated and self-directed, willing to pitch in beyond direct responsibilitiesAbility to self-assess the needs of a system or codebase, and make the case to prioritize that workPassion for keeping always-on global services healthy, comfortable with on-call rotations and owning incidents end to endBenefits 401(K) plan eligibilityMedical, dental, and vision coverageLife insurance13 paid holidays per calendar yearPaid vacation: 10 - 20 days per calendar yearUp to 5 paid sick days per calendar yearBenefits: 401(k)401(k) matchingDental insuranceHealth insuranceLife insurancePaid sick timePaid time offParental leaveRetirement planVision insurance