Senior Software Engineer, A Thinking Ape
Services
CA$148k
Salary applicable for candidates based in British Columbia, other locations may vary
More information about location
Developer of social mobile video games
Open for applications
Developer of social mobile video games
21-100 employees
Open for applications
CA$148k
Salary applicable for candidates based in British Columbia, other locations may vary
More information about location
21-100 employees
Company mission
To build and create online games, communities and technologies that change how people socialize and play on mobile devices.
Role
Who you are
- At least 2+ years of previous work experience in backend software development
- Experience building and working in distributed systems
- Comfortable debugging and fixing tricky issues in various parts of the backend software stack
- You have previously led and shipped at least 3 high quality features to thousands of customers that required use of distributed system concepts
- Extensive track record of architecting and implementing scalable backend services and systems
- Excellent written and verbal technical communication skills to work with a variety of stakeholders in different disciplines to translate requirements into buildable software
- You can effectively communicate ideas into working documentation and technical designs that serve other members of the team
- Able to own a problem and dissect it into concrete actionable steps that are implemented while ensuring that timelines and goals are met
What the job involves
- A Thinking Ape (ATA) is seeking a Senior Software Engineer focusing on Distributed Systems to join the live service department (Leviathan) which actively maintains and develops 6 different live games with over 80k+ DAU (daily active users)
- On Leviathan you will be instrumental in building, extending, monitoring, and maintaining core systems across our microservice architecture that players interact with
- These systems support Leviathan's extensive portfolio of games across which 80,000+ players engage with every day
- You’ll be responsible for interacting with product team members to translate their designs into scalable systems that service our community
- Build scalable systems for massively multiplayer mobile games that will support thousands of concurrent users
- Diagnose performance issues in large-scale systems, from translating customer issues into theories based on Application Performance Monitoring software to implementing/executing those theories promptly with validation
- Create tools to automate and optimize processes across disciplines. These might include adding player management tools for our community team, data pipeline optimizations for our game designers, or event content pipelines for our art team
- Become involved in every aspect of product development, from design to implementation to playtests to metrics analysis
- Lead the technical investigation, implementation, release, and iteration of solutions to large-scale product problems
- Significant work communicating with a variety of disciplines and stakeholders to take features to release
Our take
Mobile video games have existed since smartphones first hit the market, often being associated with single-player novelty games aimed to pass the time. Whilst many mobile developers have attempted to make games that emulate the social communities that console and PC multi-player games host, these generally do not succeed due to lacking sufficient social infrastructure.
A Thinking Ape develops video games for mobile devices, focusing on integrating social features that facilitate communities which are commonplace on other video game platforms. The company's games include Kingdoms of Heckfire, Party in my Dorm, and Casino X, each of which is free-to-play with in-game purchases and revolve around independent in-game social features.
Whilst A Thinking Ape is not the first developer to produce such games for mobile, many of its competitors have stuck to lazy ports from PC and console. The company instead makes the mobile platform its priority, allowing it to fill a nice gap in the market. Though not immune from the industry woes that saw layoffs across gaming in recent years, the company has appeared positive throughout restructuring and there's no reason it won't have a bright future.
Freddie
Company Specialist at Welcome to the Jungle
Insights
-2% employee growth in 12 months
Company
Company benefits
- Health and dental
- Unlimited sick days, flexible scheduling and work from home options
- Our kitchen is always stocked with a wide variety of snacks and every Wednesday we provide catered lunch
- Professional development funding, regular lunch and learns, annual game jams and bi-weekly 1:1s with team leads
- Monthly “Birthiversaries”, ad-hoc game tournaments and pop-up team events. Oh, and our summer and holiday parties? They’re epic!
- On-site yoga sessions, a monthly massage clinic and our company-sponsored hockey and dodgeball teams. (Go Rampage!)
Company HQ
West End, Vancouver, BC
Leadership
Eric Diep
(Founder)Also Founder at manifold.xyz. Graduate in Mathematics and Fine Arts from the University of Waterloo. Founded A Thinking Ape as CTO.
Tayber Voyer
(CEO)Joined the company in 2015 as Director of Product Management and Game Design. Was then VP of Product before becoming CEO in 2023. Former Producer at East Side Games.
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