Role Description
We are looking for an engineer who architects the service, deploys it, monitors it in production, responds when it breaks, and improves it after every incident.
Key Responsibilities:
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Service Design & Architecture
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Design and build scalable, resilient web services in Java and/or Scala that support game client needs across PC, console, and mobile.
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Own the data model — choose the right store (MongoDB for flexible document storage, DynamoDB for key-value at scale, Redis for caching and session state) and justify it.
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Design REST APIs that game clients actually integrate well against — clear contracts, versioned, documented, forgiving of client-side variation.
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Architect for the load profile of a live game: average load, launch spikes, event peaks, and graceful degradation when upstream dependencies fail.
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Define and enforce service boundaries — knows where one service ends and another begins, and why.
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AWS Infrastructure & Deployment
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Build and maintain AWS infrastructure using IaC tooling (CDK, Terraform, or CloudFormation — confirm what's in use on the engagement).
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Own the deployment pipeline for services they build: CI/CD configuration, environment promotion, rollback capability.
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Right-size AWS resources for cost and performance — does not default to over-provisioning and does not leave obvious cost inefficiencies.
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Familiar with the AWS services relevant to game backends: EC2, ECS/EKS, Lambda (where appropriate), API Gateway, ElastiCache, SQS/SNS, CloudWatch, S3.
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Understands the network and security posture of services exposed to game clients — VPC design, security groups, IAM least privilege, secrets management.
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Live Operation & Observability
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Instruments every service for production readiness: structured logging, metrics, distributed tracing, health checks, and alerting before it goes live — not after the first incident.
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Monitors services in production: reads dashboards, interprets anomalies, distinguishes noise from signal.
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Responds to production incidents in services they own — has on-call responsibilities commensurate with service criticality.
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Writes post-mortems and follows through on structural improvements so the same failure mode does not recur.
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Understands the difference between a symptom and a root cause — does not fix symptoms.
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Cross-Platform Client Integration
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Works directly with game client engineers (PC, console, mobile) to define integration contracts, review client-side usage patterns, and debug integration issues.
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Understands the constraints of each platform environment: console certification requirements around network usage, mobile data sensitivity, PC permissiveness — and designs service interfaces accordingly.
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Owns the integration surface: API documentation that is correct, versioned, and kept up to date as the service evolves.
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Participates in client-facing technical reviews where backend service design is on the table.
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Quality & Engineering Standards
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Writes unit and integration tests as a first-class output — not an afterthought.
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Code reviews: gives specific, actionable feedback and receives it without defensiveness.
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Maintains service documentation: architecture decisions, operational runbooks, known limitations, dependency map.
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Raises technical debt explicitly — names it, quantifies its cost, and proposes a remediation path.
Qualifications
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5+ years of professional backend/server-side engineering experience with at least 3 years working on services at live production scale.
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Java at a professional shipping level — not just familiarity. Has designed, built, and operated Java services in production.
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AWS hands-on ownership — has provisioned, deployed, monitored, and debugged AWS infrastructure, not just used managed services provisioned by someone else.
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Polyglot data store fluency: has made deliberate choices between MongoDB, DynamoDB, and Redis for different use cases — not defaulted to one store for everything.
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REST API design with real client integration experience — PC, console, or mobile clients consuming services they built.
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End-to-end ownership mindset: has been on-call for services they wrote. Has written a post-mortem. Has shipped the fix.
Requirements
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Experience designing services that handle launch-day spikes: horizontal scaling patterns, queue-based load levelling, circuit breakers.
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Familiarity with platform-specific SDK constraints: PlayStation Network, Xbox Live, Nintendo NSO, or Apple/Google mobile — understanding what the platform restricts and what it requires from the backend.
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Kafka or SQS/SNS for event-driven service communication.
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Kubernetes (EKS) cluster operations experience.
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Security-conscious engineering: OAuth/OIDC, rate limiting, input validation, OWASP awareness at service design level.
Benefits
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Strong and enthusiastic team – you will have the opportunity for knowledge sharing, learning, and professional self-development.
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Interesting and challenging tasks – solve diverse and challenging issues, communicate with people within the company as well as with our partners.
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Convenient working conditions – remote work, the opportunity to build your own working day with flexible working hours.
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A chance to work in a highly professional and dynamic team working with a wide range of International Game Production projects, attractive remuneration package, and opportunities to develop professionally.
