Lead Backend Engineer, Pocket Worlds
$130-200k
+ Equity + Bonus
Metaverse firm
Open for applications
Metaverse firm
101-200 employees
Open for applications
$130-200k
+ Equity + Bonus
101-200 employees
Company mission
To empower creativity and connection in a digital world.
Role
Who you are
- You don’t need to be an expert in every piece of the stack — but you should be strong in system design, cloud infra, distributed systems, and be able to quickly ramp up on unfamiliar tech
- Have 6+ years of experience building and scaling backend systems in production
- Are fluent in distributed systems, cloud infrastructure, and data architecture
- Write clean, maintainable, well-tested code — and expect the same from others
- Have led teams or been the go-to technical lead for high-impact projects
- Love solving messy, ambiguous problems — and don’t wait to be told what to do
- Believe building > talking, and own every part of the system like it’s yours
- Are fast, decisive, and care deeply about product outcomes
What the job involves
- We’re looking for a Lead Backend Engineer to own our backend architecture and lead our team of 3 backend engineers
- You’ll raise the bar on execution, design systems that scale, and lead with a bias for speed and quality
- This is a critical role. You’re not just building systems — you’re building the foundation for everything that follows
- Own and evolve our backend architecture to support millions of users across games and virtual worlds
- Lead and mentor a team of backend engineers — unblocking them, growing them, and raising the bar
- Set and enforce engineering standards across code quality, testing, deployment, and observability
- Drive technical planning: make build vs buy decisions, anticipate scale issues, and ensure velocity
- Collaborate closely with product, frontend, and platform teams to ship end-to-end features fast
- Make pragmatic calls under uncertainty and ensure we always keep moving forward
- Take ownership of systems performance, cost, reliability, and developer experience
- Our Stack
- Languages: Async typed Python, Go
- Infrastructure: Kubernetes (kOps), AWS, Terraform, Helm
- Data: MongoDB, Redis, ElasticSearch, OpenSearch
- Monitoring & Observability: Grafana, Kibana, Prometheus
- Communication: REST, FlatBuffers, WebSocket Secure (WSS)
- Architecture: Microservices, event-based architecture
Our take
The popularity of virtual worlds is on the rise, with immersive gaming and social experiences more accessible than ever. As the parent company of Highrise and Everkskies, Pocket Worlds designs and builds metaverse communities to bring people together in new ways.
Through Highrise, it offers a virtual world where people make avatars and create relationships. Impressively, this has now amassed over 40 million users. The company's 2021 acquisition of Everskies, a pixel doll community, added a new world to its offering.
Moving forwards, Pocket Worlds has continued to launch new capabilities to serve its users. For example, Highrise Studio and Highrise 4.0 were introduced to make it easier for creators to build and monetize virtual experiences.
Steph
Company Specialist at Welcome to the Jungle
Insights
12% employee growth in 12 months
Company
Funding (2 rounds)
Jan 2021
$7m
EARLY VC
Oct 2018
$3m
SEED
Total funding: $10m
Company benefits
- Work anytime: This isn’t your typical 9-5 — they give you full permission to hop online whenever works for you
- Work anywhere: They have a team that spans the globe, so you have the ability to work from wherever speaks to you
- Training and Education Budget: Keep building your skillset with an annual reimbursement of up to $1,000 for programs, certifications, and learning materials
- Team Building Budget: Get to know your teammates with a monthly event and activity stipend of $25 per person
- Fitness Allowance: Stay active with a $50 monthly reimbursement for your gym membership, yoga studio membership, or whatever gets you moving
- Coworking Space Stipend: Choose a coworking space in your city that works for you and we’ll foot the bill
- Family Leave: Receive up to 2 months 100% paid time off during your first year of parenthood (after 6 months of employment)
- Annual Retreat: Join all fulltime employees on a unique jettsetting adventure every 9-12 months to brainstorm and meet face-to-face
Company HQ
Galindo, Austin, TX
Leadership
Anton Bernstein
(Co-Founder & CEO)Previously co-founded Luxury Escapes and Lookingo, serving here as CEO. Served as CEO for Smartbox and sat on the Investment Team for Redpoint Ventures and Insight Venture Partners.
Jimmy Xu
(Co-Founder & CTO)Previously served as a Design Engineer for Apple. Experience as a Research Assistant at the University of Washington.
Salary benchmarks
We don't have enough data yet to provide salary benchmarks for this role.
Submit your salary to help other candidates with crowdsourced salary estimates.
Share this job
View 1 more job at Pocket Worlds