Staff Software Engineer - Backend

This position is listed on behalf of a partner company, who manages all applications and next steps. Our partner is looking for a Staff Software Engineer - Backend based in Germany.

As a Staff Software Engineer, you’ll play a pivotal role in re-architecting a mission-critical matchmaking platform operating at exceptional global scale.

You’ll combine deep backend expertise with architectural leadership to build systems capable of supporting the next generation of users and traffic.

Your primary focus will be designing a scalable, decoupled, and extensible matchmaking architecture using Go, GCP, and Kubernetes.

You’ll tackle sophisticated distributed-systems challenges involving throughput, latency, consistency, caching, concurrency, and reliability.

As a senior individual contributor, you’ll influence engineering standards, architectural decisions, and the technical direction of multiple teams.

You’ll also create reusable abstractions and interfaces that allow engineers to move quickly without sacrificing quality or maintainability.

This is an opportunity to shape technology at the heart of a global competitive gaming ecosystem while mentoring and empowering other engineers.

Accountabilities:

• Lead the architectural redesign and implementation of the next generation of a high-scale matchmaking engine.
• Collaborate with engineering teams and cross-functional stakeholders to define an architecture that is scalable, modular, decoupled, and extensible.
• Design clean, robust interfaces and high-level abstractions that simplify complex systems and enable teams to build new capabilities efficiently.
• Solve complex distributed-systems challenges related to massive throughput, low latency, reliability, concurrency, and service scalability.
• Leverage Google Cloud Platform, Kubernetes, and modern cloud-native practices to build highly resilient microservices.
• Establish and promote strong architectural and engineering standards across backend development.
• Conduct high-level code and architecture reviews, providing constructive guidance on design patterns, system boundaries, and technical quality.
• Act as a technical multiplier by mentoring senior engineers and sharing expertise in architecture, distributed systems, and backend engineering.
• Apply Domain-Driven Design principles to establish clear service boundaries and evolve legacy systems toward modern distributed architectures.
• Identify and address challenges involving database locking, eventual consistency, distributed caching, race conditions, and other issues inherent to high-scale systems.
• Balance long-term architectural vision with pragmatic implementation decisions that deliver reliable and maintainable software.

Requirements:

• Extensive professional experience designing, developing, and deploying robust backend APIs and microservices in production environments.
• Strong software engineering expertise, with Golang experience highly preferred.
• Proven experience re-architecting or modernizing legacy systems into distributed, cloud-native microservice architectures.
• Strong understanding of Domain-Driven Design (DDD) and the ability to establish effective boundaries between services and domains.
• Deep knowledge of distributed systems and their practical challenges, including database locking, eventual consistency, distributed caching, race conditions, throughput, and latency.
• Experience working with gRPC and Protobuf is highly valuable.
• Strong hands-on experience with cloud infrastructure, particularly Google Cloud Platform (GCP) and Kubernetes/GKE.
• Experience with Docker and containerized application environments.
• Familiarity with high-scale distributed databases and caching technologies.
• Strong architectural judgment and the ability to create abstractions that remain useful and maintainable as systems evolve.
• Demonstrated ability to influence technical direction beyond an individual project or team.
• Excellent communication skills and the ability to explain complex architectural concepts clearly to engineers and stakeholders.
• Experience conducting senior-level code reviews and mentoring experienced engineers.
• Comfortable working as a senior individual contributor in a collaborative, cross-functional environment.
• Experience with high-traffic systems where performance, caching, scalability, and latency optimization were critical is a strong advantage.
• Genuine interest in gaming and esports is a plus.
• Experience mentoring engineers outside your immediate project or team is an additional advantage.

Benefits:

• Opportunity to work on highly scalable technology serving a global community of millions of users.
• Significant architectural ownership over a mission-critical matchmaking platform.
• Opportunity to solve complex distributed-systems and scalability challenges at substantial scale.
• Work with a modern technology stack including Golang, gRPC, Protobuf, GCP, Kubernetes, Docker, distributed databases, and caching systems.
• Senior individual-contributor position with broad technical influence and architectural responsibility.
• Opportunity to mentor experienced engineers and help shape engineering standards and best practices.
• Exposure to the rapidly evolving global gaming and esports ecosystem.
• Inclusive, equal-opportunity working environment that values diverse perspectives and backgrounds.
• Opportunity to contribute to technology that supports competitive gaming communities and experiences worldwide.