Senior/Staff Backend Engineer, VRChat
API, Economy
+ Stock Options
Virtual world platform
Be an early applicant
Virtual world platform
101-200 employees
Be an early applicant
+ Stock Options
101-200 employees
Company mission
To build VRChat into one of the most successful community-driven social VR platforms in existence.
Role
Who you are
- 5+ years of experience in backend engineering for SaaS, fintech, marketplaces, or online platforms
- Deep proficiency in Node.js and TypeScript
- Strong experience with relational and non-relational databases (MySQL, MongoDB, Redis)
- Experience managing message queues, caching strategies, and WebSocket systems
- Proven experience building and maintaining external integrations (payment vendors, fintech platforms)
- Strong understanding of profiling, optimization tradeoffs, and observability
- Experience operating under PCI DSS, GDPR, and PII requirements
- Experience building subscription engines, marketplaces, accounting systems, or invoicing workflows
- Familiarity with AWS, Docker, CI/CD pipelines, and Infrastructure as Code
- Comfortable navigating ambiguity across experimental and high-certainty requirements
- Experience working in complex, evolving codebases
- Experience leading large-scale refactors or architectural migrations
- Full-stack development experience
- Independent and proactive self-starter
- Low ego, high ownership, and collaborative
- Growth-oriented and adaptable
- Empathetic toward creators and end users
- Calm and clear-headed during high-traffic events or critical incidents
Desirable
- Experience with event-driven or high-throughput transactional systems
- Experience integrating with Steam, Oculus, Apple, or Google Play payment systems
- Experience building internal operational tooling or creator-facing systems
- Active participation in creator economies or VRChat itself
What the job involves
- We’re looking for a Senior / Staff Backend Engineer (API) – Economy to join our Economy team. You will play a foundational role in architecting and evolving the systems that power how creators earn and how users transact across VRChat globally
- This role focuses on building high-integrity backend infrastructure that supports subscriptions, digital ownership, creator monetization, payment processing, and economic analytics at global scale
- You’ll work primarily with Node.js and TypeScript, designing systems where correctness, auditability, reliability, and compliance are non-negotiable
- If you’re excited about building financial-grade systems for a thriving global creator ecosystem, this role could be the perfect fit
- Design and implement scalable backend services in Node.js and TypeScript
- Ensure transactional integrity in high-volume economic systems
- Model digital ownership, entitlements, wallets, and payouts
- Build and evolve systems supporting both first-party and creator-driven content
- Drive refactors that improve maintainability and long-term platform evolution
- Participate in architectural discussions shaping the future of VRChat’s economy stack
- Design reliable economic event representations
- Ensure traceability across payment transactions and reporting systems
- Enable subscription and marketplace analytics
- Support experimentation and feature iteration
- Maintain reconciliation accuracy and reporting integrity
- Contribute to fraud detection and prevention systems
- Own services from development through deployment and monitoring
- Improve CI/CD reliability and release safety
- Work within containerized environments (Docker)
- Contribute to Infrastructure as Code (IaC)
- Strengthen observability, monitoring, and incident response practices
- Occasionally jump in to resolve critical production issues
- We build and scale:
- VRC+ subscription infrastructure
- Central and avatar marketplaces
- First-party and creator-driven digital content systems
- Digital credits, wallets, inventory, ownership, and subscription models
- Creator payouts and reconciliation
- Monetization events and purchase flows
- Economic analytics and reporting
- Internal and external tooling supporting creators and platform teams
- Senior-Level Expectations:
- Design and implement scalable backend services
- Own systems end-to-end through production
- Improve performance, observability, and operational resilience
- Partner cross-functionally with Product, Design, Data, Finance, Trust & Safety, Infrastructure, and peer engineering teams
- Lead architectural initiatives across the economy stack
- Shape long-term technical direction
- Identify systemic risks and drive preventative improvements
- Mentor engineers and elevate engineering standards
- Influence and inform cross-team design decisions
- Staff-Level Expectations (In Addition):
- Bring credible experience designing and operating financial or high-integrity transactional systems at scale
- Architect cross-team economic platform primitives (e.g., entitlement models, payment flows, reconciliation frameworks, event contracts)
- Define long-term technical strategy for the economy stack, balancing scalability, compliance, and product velocity
- Lead strategic architecture initiatives spanning multiple services or teams, and high stake external partners and integrations
- Mentor senior engineers and influence technical direction across the organization
- Influence cross-team design decisions at platform scale
Our take
Virtual Reality is one of the technologies with the highest projected potential for growth. VRChat offers a free-to-play metaverse platform where users gather as avatars in virtual spaces to socialize and hang out, just as one would in real life.
Whilst competitor Rec Room has a greater valuation, VRChat has positioned itself as the leading VR socializing-based product. It taps into a modern desire to form connections in digital spaces, with some users meeting their real-life partners in their virtual avatar form. When contemplating VR’s popularity, it cannot be denied that virtual realities enable freedom of self-expression, an attractive proposition perhaps for those who struggle with their identity and place in the real world.
The company recently announced a 30% workforce reduction, addressing overhiring during its 2021 boom. Despite these layoffs, the company remains focused on long-term growth and capital efficiency, positioning itself for continued success as VR becomes a key part of social connection.
Freddie
Company Specialist at Welcome to the Jungle
Company
Funding (last 2 of 4 rounds)
Jun 2021
$80m
SERIES D
Sep 2019
$10m
SERIES C
Total funding: $95.2m
Company benefits
- Work remotely: Work from anywhere! They use collaboration software to stay organized and VRChat for meetings and hanging out.
- Health and wellbeing: Medical, Dental and Vision plans for those in the United States, and extended health plans in British Columbia, Canada.
- Fun: Monthly team dinners, get-togethers and once a year, they travel somewhere fun for a few days to hang out, catch up, brainstorm and have fun.
- Tools: You’ll be provided a powerful PC, high-end VR hardware, and any software you need to make you effective in your role.
- Vacations: Flexible vacation schedules that are encouraged. Most United States and Canadian holidays are observed by everyone on the team.
- Swag: Great VRChat and Developer Team Swag such as hoodies, coffee mugs, t-shirts, sun glasses and even custom 3D printed goodies.
Company HQ
Financial District, San Francisco, CA
Leadership
Graham Gaylor
(Co-Founder & CEO)Interned at SmartVault, RSM Design, Equivalent DATA, and Seismic Exchange, before spending time at ChaiONE as an iOS Developer at at Zynga as a Software Engineer.
Jesse Joudrey
(Co-Founder & CTO)Owner and CTO at Jespionage Entertainment. Began as a Software Engineer for Electronic Arts Canada before co-founding and serving as CTO for A.C.R.O.N.Y.M Games Inc.
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