Server Engineer

About the Role

The Server Engineer at Lightfox Games will design, build, and maintain scalable server-side systems for a mobile game. This role involves collaborating with various teams to implement backend features and ensuring a great player experience.

Responsibilities

• Design, build, and maintain scalable server-side systems that power core game features including player data, live ops, matchmaking, and social features.
• Collaborate closely with Gameplay Engineers, Designers, and Producers to implement and ship backend features that support a great player experience.
• Own backend features end-to-end, from technical design and implementation through testing, deployment, and live support.
• Build and maintain reliable, observable, and performant services with an eye toward scalability as the player base grows.
• Contribute to backend architecture decisions and help establish engineering standards for a growing team.

Requirements

• 5+ years of professional software engineering experience, including meaningful backend ownership on at least one shipped online or mobile title.
• Strong proficiency in Typescript and at least one other backend language, such as Go, Python, or Rust.
• Experience designing and maintaining RESTful or real-time APIs, with a solid understanding of networking fundamentals.
• Familiarity with GCP and/or Firebase tech stack, including deployment, monitoring, and scaling.
• Understand the “Why” of the features you’re building, and collaborate with the team to find creative solutions to enhance development speed and quality.
• Solid understanding of databases (both relational and NoSQL) and experience optimizing for performance, high scalability, and reliability.
• Experience leveraging AI tools and LLMs to accelerate backend development, code review, or documentation workflows.
• Strong communication and collaboration skills, comfortable working cross-functionally in small, fast-moving teams.
• Self-motivated and comfortable with ownership in an ambiguous, early-stage environment.

Nice to Have

• Experience building backend systems for mobile free-to-play games, including live ops infrastructure, event systems, or economy services.
• Experience with real-time multiplayer or social features such as guilds, leaderboards, or co-op systems.
• Familiarity with Unity and experience integrating server-side systems with a Unity client.

Compensation

CA$105,000 – CA$135,000 depending on experience, plus health/vision/dental coverage, RRSP matching, and equity.