Pocket Worlds

We are a fast-growing Y Combinator-backed company with over 30 million users. We're building bleeding-edge technology for developers and amateurs to create immersive experiences and worlds inside our virtual universe.

We believe that the future of virtual worlds is bright, and we're excited to be at the forefront of this industry. As we continue to grow and expand our platform, we're looking for talented individuals to join us on this journey of innovation and creativity. If you're passionate about building the platform to power virtual experiences that bring people together and push the boundaries of what's possible, we want you on our team!

About the Role

We seek a Senior Backend Engineer with extensive background and experience with DevOps (AWS, Kubernetes, MongoDB). The ideal candidate should be comfortable in a high-energy, high-passion, and fast-moving environment.

This role will support our backend team and take ownership of our entire DevOps stack, which currently supports 300k DAU and is poised to grow significantly higher. This role will drive our current and future development as we add support for user-crafted experiences and expand our architecture to embrace UGC. In addition, the right candidate should be comfortable with feature development in Python and GO, and will have many opportunities to work on backend features that directly impact our millions of users. We are a true startup with a team that wears many hats, and this role is no exception.

The ideal candidate values a lot of control over their career and is genuinely excited to see a virtual universe be brought to life through their work. The success of this role will be measured by the impact you deliver to our team, product, and world.

Our Current Backend Technical Stack:

• Kubernetes
• AWS(EC2, S3, LB)
• IAC(Terraform, kOps, Helm)
• MongoDB, ElasticSearch and Redis(cache and queues)
• Async typed Python (similar to typescript), GO
• OpenSearch, Grafana, Kibana and Prometheus
• REST, FlatBuffers, WebSocket Secure(WSS)
• Micro Services, event-based architecture

Our Planned Stack Upgrades:

• Expand our infrastructure to support global growth
• ML-driven recommendations and search engines
• Game servers hosting for UGC(User Generated Content)
• AI-powered content generation

Here are the skills and qualities we're looking for in our ideal candidate:

• You have at least 6 years of experience in backend development and infrastructure management, with at least 2 of those in a senior+ role.
• You have extensive experience managing infrastructure at scale, with proven success at delivering stability and performance.
• You have experience with direct ownership(you build it, you run it) of back-end services with direct involvement in the documentation, support, deployment, observability and CI/CD pipelining.
• You have experience with the core technologies in our current backend and infrastructure stack.
• You have experience and are comfortable working in a high-growth startup environment.
• You have experience supporting mission-critical applications at scale.
• You have experience programming Python.
• You love what you do. Your work is your passion and you value working with people who feel the same.

Bonuses

• You have experience programming in GO, C# or Lua.
• You have experience with the Unity Gaming Engine.
• You have built any side projects or games outside of work or made significant open-source contributions.
• You are a starter who loves to experiment and learn new things.
• You’re highly energetic and feel comfortable leading and pushing your team to succeed.
• You are comfortable taking control of large systems with minimal documentation.

Why work with us

• Impact: Your work will directly affect millions of users around the world.
• Growth: Your growth isn’t capped by a career ladder. Show us you can deliver the impact, and we’ll respond with recognition and reward.
• Elite team: You’ll be a member of a small and elite team with a lot of freedom to go after opportunities you identify.
• Culture: High trust, high intensity, low process and bureaucracy. We pride ourselves in being a Silicon Valley startup with a laser focus on the mission, and we’ll happily remove all roadblocks in your path to success.
• Reward: This role offers a highly competitive salary and very generous equity. Our incentives will be directly aligned toward success.
• Office and team: Directly work with the cofounders in our office in Downtown Austin.