Lead Backend Engineer – Remote, Scalable Game Systems

Gardens Interactive; Los Angeles (CA); Remote; USD 180,000 - 230,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Competitive salaries

Stock options

Medical, dental, and vision

Life insurance and disability

401(k) / RRSP

Parental leave

Fully distributed remote studio

Job summary

Gardens Interactive is seeking a Lead Backend Engineer to guide a growing backend team of game services and live-ops infrastructure. You’ll own architecture, scale systems for a global audience, and collaborate with design, production, and marketing to align technical plans with creative vision.

You’ll mentor engineers, define processes, and ensure reliable, cost‑effective delivery while maintaining high ownership in a lean studio. Remote NA time zones welcomed.

Qualifications

• 6+ years of backend experience, preferably in games/live-service.
• 2+ years of experience directly managing engineers.
• Strong Kotlin or Java skills and familiarity with Kubernetes, Grafana, Terraform, and load‑testing tools.
• Hands-on experience scaling backend systems for global audiences; monitoring and alerting expertise.
• Solid software architecture knowledge and good judgment on design choices.

Responsibilities

• Lead, mentor, and grow the backend engineering team; set goals and provide feedback.
• Own evolution of backend architecture and critical-path systems; write production code.
• Own reliability, SLOs, incident response, and cost management.

Skills

Backend leadership

Kotlin

Java

Kubernetes

Grafana

Terraform

Load testing

System design

Cross-functional

Tools

Grafana

Terraform

Kubernetes

Load testing tools

Job description

Gardens Interactive is seeking a Lead Backend Engineer to guide a growing backend team of game services and live-ops infrastructure. You’ll own architecture, scale systems for a global audience, and collaborate with design, production, and marketing to align technical plans with creative vision.

You’ll mentor engineers, define processes, and ensure reliable, cost‑effective delivery while maintaining high ownership in a lean studio. Remote NA time zones welcomed.