Principal Backend Engineer

Nexus Mods; Exeter; On-site; GBP 80,000 - 90,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

4-day work week (32 hours)

£25 monthly games allowance

Employee Assistance Programme

Private BUPA healthcare

Flexible training budget

Regular social events

Job summary

Nexus Mods is seeking a Principal Backend Engineer to lead a cross-functional pod and shape core services for millions of users. You will drive technical decisions, mentor engineers, and ensure delivery is robust, scalable, and aligned with our technical direction.

The role focuses on building high-scale backend systems, APIs (REST/GraphQL), and distributed architectures for a global modding community, across web and desktop platforms.

Qualifications

• Extensive backend engineering experience.
• Deep experience with one or more backend languages (Ruby, PHP, Java, Go, Node.js).
• Strong system design and architecture skills.
• Experience building and scaling APIs (REST and/or GraphQL).
• Distributed systems and event-driven architectures understanding.
• Relational databases (Postgres/MySQL) and NoSQL (Redis/ElasticSearch).
• Experience with CI/CD, Docker, and Kubernetes.
• Strong communication and leadership by influence.

Responsibilities

• Own technical direction within your pod (architecture, design, tooling, trade-offs).
• Build and scale backend services and APIs serving millions of users.
• Ensure systems are performant, reliable, and maintainable.
• Align pod decisions with wider platform architecture.
• Support and unblock engineers to help teammates work efficiently.
• Collaborate closely with Product, Design, and other disciplines.
• Drive engineering standards across code quality, testing, and delivery.
• Contribute to discovery, prototyping, and iterative delivery.
• Identify and tackle technical debt and scalability challenges.

Skills

Ruby

PHP

Java

Go

Node.js

Distributed systems

REST/GraphQL APIs

CI/CD

Docker

Kubernetes

Postgres/MySQL

Redis/ElasticSearch

System design

Leadership

Communication

Tools

Docker

Kubernetes

Redis

ElasticSearch

Job description

Role Description

Salary: £80,000 - £90,000

Location: UK or Europe

Please note: We are unable to sponsor international visas at this time.

About Nexus Mods

Established in 2001, Nexus Mods is the largest video game modding platform on the internet - a household name in the PC gaming ecosystem.

• 77M+ registered members
• 900K+ mods for 5,000+ games
• 24B+ mod downloads

We’re currently focused on product modernisation, driving growth and building infrastructure for the next 10 years of community-powered modding.

Our Role

We’re looking for Principal Backend Engineer to join our Backend Engineering team. You will act as the technical lead within a cross functional pod building Nexus Mods’ core services.

This is a hands-on role focused on shaping technical decisions, guiding the pod’s engineering work, supporting the team technically, and ensuring delivery is robust, scalable, and aligned with our technical direction.

This is a chance to work on challenges most companies never encounter:

• Massive scale serving millions of users and requests.
• Complex mod compatibility, dependencies, and versioning.
• A deeply engaged and passionate global modding community.

From discovery and experimentation to delivery and scale, you’ll play a key role in shaping systems that:

• Help millions of gamers discover, download, and manage mods effortlessly.
• Empower creators to publish and manage their work with confidence.
• Power high traffic APIs and distributed systems at scale.
• Support both web and desktop applications.
• Enable rapid experimentation and iteration on new features.
• Ensure the platform evolves to support the next decade of growth.

Role Responsibilities

• Own technical direction within your pod (architecture, design, tooling, trade-offs).
• Build and scale backend services and APIs serving millions of users.
• Ensure systems are performant, reliable, and maintainable.
• Align pod decisions with wider platform architecture.
• Support and unblock engineers to help teammates work efficiently.
• Collaborate closely with Product, Design, and other disciplines.
• Drive engineering standards across code quality, testing, and delivery.
• Contribute to discovery, prototyping, and iterative delivery.
• Identify and tackle technical debt and scalability challenges.

Role Requirements

• Extensive backend engineering experience, ideally with gaming or tech.
• Deep experience with at least one backend language (Ruby, PHP, Java, Go, Node.js, etc.)
• Strong system design and architecture skills.
• Experience building and scaling APIs (REST and/or GraphQL).
• Solid understanding of distributed systems and event driven architectures.
• Experience with relational databases (Postgres/MySQL) and NoSQL (Redis/ElasticSeach).
• Experience with CI/CD, Docker, and Kubernetes.
• Strong communication skills and ability to lead through influence.
• Comfortable balancing speed, quality, and pragmatism.

Bonus Skills

• Experience with authentication, payments, or search systems.
• Background in high scale platforms or UGC.
• Understanding of gaming ecosystems (e.g. multiplayer services, content distribution, or digital marketplaces).
• Experience building tools for creators, modding communities, or user-generated content platforms.
• Passion for gaming, modding, or creator ecosystems.

Benefits of Working at Nexus Mods

• We work a 4-day week of 32 hours, with no reduction in pay.
• An allowance of £25 each month to spend on video games.
• Employee Assistance Programme.
• Private BUPA healthcare for you and your family.
• A very flexible training budget.
• Regular social events throughout the year. Participation is optional!

Diversity and Inclusion

We celebrate diversity and want you to bring your whole self to work.

Supporting an incredible community of tens of millions of users, we thrive on engaging as many views as possible to improve our platform. We see no reason why our culture should be any different.

Salary

80000 - 90000 GBP (yearly)