Tech Lead

Chillbase LTD; Dubai; Hybrid; AED 420,000 - 600,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Relocation support

Performance reviews

Paid sick days

Job summary

ChillBase studio in several international locations seeks a Tech Lead for Server Development to steer architecture of a Rust-based server platform built from dozens of microservices. You will set engineering standards, review code, and guide a growing team in distributed systems, databases, and observability.

You’ll design API contracts, foster data-driven decisions, and drive deployment pipelines with GitOps on GKE, while collaborating with product and analytics teams.

Qualifications

• Proven experience leading server-scale Rust services.
• Hands-on design of distributed systems and microservice architectures.
• Deep understanding of gRPC, Protobuf, and API versioning.
• Experience with Kafka, event-driven architectures, and data guarantees.
• Strong SQL skills, with attention to transactions, indexing, and migrations.
• Familiarity with MySQL/MariaDB and ClickHouse for analytical workloads.
• Practices around Kubernetes, GitOps, and CI/CD pipelines.
• Knowledge of GCP/GKE, Helm, and deployment tooling (ArgoCD).
• Experience with modern auth (OAuth2/OIDC/JWT/IAM) and access management.
• Track record in observability: metrics, tracing, SLOs, alerting.
• Demonstrated Tech Lead capabilities: reviews, standards, planning, hiring.
• Ability to assess legacy code, identify risks, and drive maintainable design.
• Experience using AI agents/tools in daily engineering work.

Responsibilities

• Design and evolve architecture of a server platform with dozens of microservices.
• Make technical decisions for new services, integrations, and distributed systems.
• Define and maintain API contracts using gRPC, Protobuf, and REST.
• Develop a Kafka-based event-driven architecture with clear data flows.
• Contribute Rust server-side code with high quality and reliability.
• Identify bottlenecks, debt, and performance or reliability risks.
• Design databases with transactions, indexes, migrations, and storage structures.
• Improve Kubernetes, GKE, GitOps and CI/CD practices.
• Build observability: metrics, tracing, SLOs, and diagnostic tools.
• Shape authentication and authorization solutions and access management.
• Decompose tasks, plan, and set technical priorities.
• Mentor engineers and contribute to hiring decisions.
• Collaborate with product, analytics, web, and other teams on shared solutions.

Skills

Rust

Microservice architecture

gRPC/Protobuf

Kafka

SQL

MySQL/MariaDB

ClickHouse

Kubernetes

GKE / Helm / ArgoCD

OAuth2 / OIDC / JWT / IAM

Observability

Tech Lead / Team Lead

Code reviews / engineering standards

Hiring / mentorship

AI tools in engineering

Tools

Go

TypeScript

React

NestJS

Job description

Job Description:

Location

Dubai, Limassol, Almaty, Yerevan, Tbilisi

ChillBase studio is an independent and innovative player in the gaming industry. We’re fueled by our passion for crafting outstanding products. Our ongoing projects are in full swing, and we’re dedicated to delivering top-notch work without being tied down by a strict corporate structure. We are working on OneState, a unique Social RolePlay game, and are looking for a Tech Lead for Server Development to lead the technical direction of our platform: design distributed systems, make architectural decisions, maintain high standards of code quality and engineering processes, and help the team grow. The platform powers key user and business scenarios, including the in-game and web stores, player accounts and authentication, promotional mechanics, surveys, behavioral and monetization analytics, and internal management tools for the team.

What We Want To See

• Commercial experience developing with Rust and a deep understanding of the language and its ecosystem, including async programming, error handling, and the type system.
• Hands-on experience designing and developing microservice architectures.
• Strong understanding of gRPC and Protobuf, including API contract design, backward compatibility, code generation, and API versioning.
• Experience with Kafka and event-driven architecture, including delivery guarantees, idempotency, event ordering, and event-driven communication.
• Strong understanding of SQL and relational databases, including transactions, isolation levels, migrations, indexes, and working with databases under load.
• Experience with MySQL / MariaDB and an understanding of columnar databases, particularly ClickHouse, and their use cases.
• Hands-on experience with Kubernetes and Infrastructure as Code / GitOps approaches.
• Understanding of GCP / GKE, Helm, and deployment tools such as ArgoCD.
• Understanding of modern authentication and authorization approaches, including OAuth2, OIDC, JWT, and IAM.
• Experience building observability for distributed systems, including metrics, tracing, alerting, and SLOs.
• Experience as a Tech Lead / Team Lead, including code reviews, setting engineering standards, planning, task decomposition, hiring, and developing engineers.
• Ability to deeply understand existing codebases, identify technical risks, and make decisions with long-term system maintainability in mind.
• Experience actively using AI agents and AI tools in daily engineering work.

Nice to have

• Experience developing with Go — one of the platform’s gateways is written in Go.
• Web development experience: TypeScript, React, NestJS.
• Experience with B2C monetization, including payments, in-app purchases, App Store, Google Play, subscriptions, and promotional mechanics.
• Experience building analytical data marts and data pipelines, and working with ClickHouse.
• Hands-on experience with SAST, Semgrep, supply chain security, and CI/CD security.
• Experience developing small services at the network edge, for example with Cloudflare Workers.
• Knowledge of approaches to reliability, fault tolerance, and consistency in distributed systems.
• Experience working with large-scale, high-load gaming or B2C systems.

What You’ll Do

• Design and evolve the architecture of a server platform consisting of dozens of microservices.
• Make technical decisions for new services, integrations, and distributed systems.
• Design and maintain API contracts between services using gRPC, Protobuf, and REST.
• Develop the Kafka-based event-driven architecture, including event schemas, data flows, and processing guarantees.
• Develop and review Rust server‑side code while maintaining high standards of code quality and reliability.
• Work with the existing codebase, identify bottlenecks, technical debt, and potential performance or reliability issues.
• Design database solutions, including transactions, indexes, migrations, query optimization, and data storage structures.
• Improve infrastructure and engineering practices around Kubernetes, GKE, GitOps, and CI/CD.
• Develop observability across the platform, including metrics, distributed tracing, SLOs, and diagnostic tools.
• Participate in designing solutions for authentication, authorization, and access management.
• Break down technically complex tasks, participate in planning, and help define technical development priorities.
• Support the growth of engineers through technical guidance, mentoring, and regular feedback.
• Participate in hiring and help build the engineering team.
• Collaborate with product, analytics, web, and other technical teams to design and implement shared solutions.

Benefits

Growth and development

Our project is continuously growing, just like the teams behind it. We invest in the growth of team members, conduct regular performance reviews, and review salaries based on performance.

Care for employees

Paid sick days, the ability to take days off, support during difficult life situations, and a minimum of bureaucracy and processes for the sake of processes.

Relocation support

We support with relocation for this role

We carefully review every application and will definitely reach out if your profile matches the role’s requirements. If you do not receive a response within 14 calendar days, it means we are not moving forward with your application at this stage. We’d be happy to reconnect in the future — please keep an eye on our openings.

Employment process

You apply for an open role via our careers portal. We carefully review your CV and any additional materials you provide. If your experience matches our needs, we’ll invite you for an initial conversation with a recruiter. It’s a chance to get to know each other, talk about your motivation and expectations, and share more about the role and company. A closing conversation with a hiring manager or team lead. We’ll discuss the outcomes of the previous stages, cover any remaining questions, and align on expectations. If everything goes well — we’ll extend a job offer. Once the details are confirmed, we’ll guide you through the onboarding process and welcome you to the team.