Software Engineer

About the role

• We are looking for a skilled software engineer to join the World Engine team and help design, develop, and optimize our horizontally scalable open-source game server framework that utilizes a novel sharding architecture and EVM smart contracts to augment user-generated content.
• You will join a deeply technical engineering-focused team reporting directly to a technical CEO. You will have the opportunity to contribute significantly to the production direction and interface directly with World Engine's users through our open-source channels.

Responsibilities

• Design, implement, and maintain highly scalable and reliable distributed systems that support real-time multiplayer gameplay.
• Optimize existing game server infrastructure for performance and cost efficiency.
• Collaborate with cross-functional teams, including game developers, network engineers, and cloud architects, to integrate server-side logic with game functionalities.
• Implement robust synchronization mechanisms to handle high-latency and partial failure scenarios effectively.
• Develop tools and frameworks to automate server infrastructure deployment, scaling, and monitoring.
• Conduct load testing and performance tuning to ensure system stability and respond to customer-facing latency issues.

Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science or relevant technical field; OR significant relevant past software engineering project/working experience.
• Strong experience designing and building distributed systems, preferably with exposure to online gaming or real-time interactive systems.
• Proficiency in object-oriented programming languages such as C++, Rust, or Go.
• Deep understanding of network protocols (TCP/IP, HTTP, WebSocket) and low-level networking.
• Familiarity with database management and caching solutions (Redis, MongoDB, SQL).
• Ability to diagnose and resolve performance bottlenecks in high-traffic environments.
• Excellent problem-solving skills and ability to think algorithmically.

Nice to have

• Experience with cloud services (AWS, Azure, Google Cloud) and server orchestration technologies (Kubernetes, Docker).
• Experience with blockchain technology.
• Experience with game development (Unity, Unreal, etc).
• Past significant contributions to open-source projects.
• Notable demonstration of software engineering or technical capabilities such as:
  • Highly technical personal projects (compilers/interpreters, P2P, byzantine fault-tolerant distributed system, cryptography, etc.)
  • Competitive programming competitions (IOI, ICPC, USACO, Google Code Jam, Codeforces, etc.)
  • Capture-The-Flag/CTF competitions (DEFCON, PicoCTF, etc.)

Perks & benefits

For full-time employees

• A note for the game industry veterans: no crunch :-)
• Flexible PTO (2 weeks required) + holidays
• 100% employer-covered medical, dental, and vision insurance (US)
• 401k (US)
• Up to $1500 desk set-up stipend
• Company retreats

We’re an equal-opportunity employer. All applicants will be considered for employment without attention to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, veteran, or disability status.