Software Developer (Backend)

About the Position

Backend work here isn't a layer of plumbing between a UI and a database. It's where the actual guarantees live. A game's math can be provably correct and the art can be finished, but if a session drops mid-round, if a balance updates twice, if an API returns something the caller didn't expect, none of that matters. Correctness under load is the whole job, and it's the part nobody else can do for you.

You'll design and build backend services and APIs in Spring with Kotlin - Java experience is welcome, and a willingness to work in Kotlin is what actually matters. You'll own schemas and queries rather than treating the database as somebody else's problem, and you'll be in production when something breaks, reading logs and working out what really happened rather than what seemed likely.

The interesting tension is between shipping and building things you'll still want to own in two years. We're not going to pretend every decision resolves in favour of one or the other. What we want is someone who can tell the difference - who knows which shortcuts are cheap and which ones compound, and says so at the point where it's still cheap to change course.

You'll work closely with frontend developers, with the math and game teams, and in code review and design discussions where your reasoning gets tested. Being able to explain why an architecture holds - and where it doesn't - matters as much as writing it.

About You

We care more about how you think about systems than about which frameworks are on your CV. That said, this role assumes some real mileage. You should be:

• Experienced - 5+ years building backend systems professionally, with production ownership rather than tickets handed to you
• Strong in Kotlin or Java, and ready to work in Kotlin day to day
• Fluent in Spring (Boot, Data, Security) and in what these frameworks do on your behalf, not just how to configure them
• Clear about RESTful API design - what a good contract looks like, and what it costs everyone downstream when it isn't
• Comfortable across relational (MySQL or similar), non-relational, and in-memory stores like Redis, with a sense of which problem each one actually solves
• At home with build tooling (Gradle, Maven) and with Git worked properly rather than as a save button
• Someone who takes ownership by default - who follows a bug to its cause instead of its symptom, and who notices the detail that would have been easy to leave
• A clear communicator in English, able to make a technical case to people with different context

Useful, not required

• Cloud platforms (GCP, AWS or Azure)
• Containerization and orchestration (Docker, Kubernetes)
• Event-driven architectures (Kafka, RabbitMQ or similar)
• Backend testing frameworks - JUnit, MockMvc, WebTestClient
• Security practice: OAuth2, JWT, API hardening
• Monitoring and observability (Prometheus, Grafana, ELK)

What We Offer

• Office, Hybrid, or Fully remote - work from anywhere
• A flat, fast-moving team with no bureaucracy slowing down good ideas
• Real ownership over the services you build, from first commit to production
• Competitive compensation based on experience and how you perform in the process
• Room to shape the role around the kinds of problems you're best at