Senior Backend Engineer

Overview

Founded in 2023, Millions of Monsters is all about game design innovation. We’re inspired by games that raise the bar on gameplay, and we’re wiring ourselves to be able to quickly discover innovative game ideas and successfully bring them to market. We’re funded by all-star investors. Our team is highly passionate & enjoys working hard on games that inspire us!

Our first game is an innovative cross-platform FTP PvP strategy game inspired by classic chess, and it has shown very positive results in early community playtesting. We're now hiring our first full-time backend engineer to design and implement core backend systems, ahead of launching in ~mid-2025

What you will achieve

As our first full-time backend engineer, you’ll be deeply involved in designing and implementing core backend systems for the game. Our game is a live service, cross-platform experience with in-app purchases (PC/mobile), and is real-time PvP with many-player matches, and with client/server separation to prevent cheating (Unity engine). Your primary responsibilities:

• Ensure the game can scale robustly to support high player concurrency, including game servers and all backend systems/online services (matchmaking, user accounts, analytics, etc.)

• Assess initial backend code/systems that we have and determine if it belongs in the final go-live version of the game or if a new design/architecture is needed (we have an initial implementation of the cloud backend systems, written in Rust and some Python, as well as use of Redis and Postgres)

• Implement and manage all design/architecture decisions — you may have the support of additional backend engineering contractors if needed

• Decide on whether we utilize 3P solutions if needed to accelerate (PlayFab, Firebase, etc.), though we’ve been using homebrewed systems for now

What will make you successful

This is a very high ownership role. You’ll be most successful if you have:

• Strong experience as a backend engineer working on large live games (e.g., millions of players), ideally having brought them to launch in the first place. 5+ years professional experience in backend system work for major live video games. Experience with games pre-launch is a big benefit

• Excellent judgment and problem solving skills. You will own the major decisions on the backend systems architecture, which should take into account timeline requirements, performance requirements, and other unique needs of the game. For example, you will have to make difficult trade-offs on what are important attributes of the go-live version

How we work

As a small and empowered team by design, we seek team members who want (and can handle) immense trust, freedom, and responsibility, as well as the opportunity to help shape everything across the game (and studio!). Some of our working norms:

• Moving fast and being scrappy, spending time where it counts. We have big ambitions and need to deliver with limited resources and time, without causing crunch for the team. This requires us to be very focused and to understand the point of diminishing return for various activities

• Embrace ownership, autonomy, and accountability, and demand it from peers. This isn’t big corporate where your job is influencing large teams. This isn’t about micromanaging or receiving micromanaging from others. This is about rolling up our sleeves and getting our hands dirty as a team, and pushing ourselves as well as our peers to excellence

• Love our game and love games in general. This kind of innovative work requires passion for our game (including regular playtesting) and games in general. Ideally you also love chess, but not required

• First-principles mindset and strong personal convictions, balanced with humility & teamwork. We seek talented game developers with strong opinions and logic for their opinions, based on intuition, experience, and facts. However, game dev is a team sport, and creative projects require multiple minds to get right, so we expect great communication and teamwork skills to win as a team

• Comfort with ambiguity. Startups naturally shift focus as they learn. You should be ready for this and excited about (or at least comfortable with!) dealing with ambiguity, with an ability to pivot as needed

• Have fun! We feel privileged that we get to work in such an exciting industry, and to have such a big positive impact on players. While the work can be challenging and require us to grow ourselves, we love having fun as a team and we channel that into our craft

What we offer

• Expected salary range: $100-175k based on experience, with company equity package

• Ideally open to in-person work culture in Austin (including relocation budget if needed) but remote is possible

• Competitive health, dental, vision, and life insurance

• 15 days PTO + holidays off