Senior/Lead Backend Engineer - NYC

Medal; New York (NY); On-site; USD 130,000 - 160,000; Full time

Job summary

Medal is looking for a Senior or Lead Backend Engineer to scale their backend infrastructure and support millions of users. This role involves designing API systems, mentoring a team, and implementing solutions for performance and cost. Join a signal team in reshaping how gamers connect and share!

Qualifications

• 5+ years of backend engineering experience, primarily in production.
• Proficient in Java and experience in building scalable systems.
• Experience with cloud platforms like GCP or AWS.

Responsibilities

• Design and develop backend systems and REST APIs for millions of users.
• Lead projects, drive architectural decisions, and mentor other engineers.
• Optimize databases and services for performance and scalability.

Skills

Java

Backend engineering

RESTful API design

Cloud infrastructure

Communication

Leadership

Education

Bachelor's degree in Computer Science or related field

Tools

MySQL

PostgreSQL

Docker

Kubernetes

Terraform

Job description

About Medal

At Medal, we’re redefining the way gamers connect, share, and relive their greatest in-game moments. Our platform makes it easy to clip, edit, and share gaming content—whether you're capturing a legendary headshot or just hanging with friends in voice chat. Over 2 million gamers use Medal every month to showcase their moments, and we’re just getting started.

We're a fast-moving team backed by top-tier investors. Our culture is builder-first: we move quickly, make decisions with creators in mind, and aren’t afraid to challenge conventions when it improves the product.

The Role

Medal’s backend powers everything from real-time in-app communications and storage of billions of user-generated clips, to our ML-based feed and social features. We’re looking for a Senior or Lead Backend Engineer to help us scale and evolve this infrastructure as we grow.

In this role, you'll work closely with product, infra, and data teams to architect and build highly scalable, low-latency systems. You'll help design critical APIs, evolve our backend infrastructure, mentor other engineers, and drive technical decisions that impact millions of users.

If you love building resilient systems, thinking about architecture at scale, and want to work on a product that blends gaming, content, and community—this role is for you.

You Will

• Design and develop backend systems and REST APIs that serve millions of users and billions of clips

• Own features end-to-end: from design and architecture through implementation and deployment

• Work closely with cross-functional teams across product, ML, and mobile to build cohesive experiences

• Scale our systems to support growth in users, content volume, and features

• Lead engineering projects, drive architectural decisions, and mentor junior and mid-level backend engineers

• Help maintain our cloud infrastructure and CI/CD pipelines

• Optimize databases, APIs, and services for performance, scalability, and cost

• Contribute to technical strategy, roadmap, and team-wide best practices

You Need

• 5+ years of backend engineering experience, with significant time in production environments

• Strong proficiency in Java and hands-on experience building scalable microservices

• Deep understanding of RESTful API design and distributed systems

• Experience with relational databases like MySQL or PostgreSQL (including performance tuning and schema design)

• Experience building systems that handle thousands of requests per second

• Comfort with cloud infrastructure (GCP or AWS preferred), CI/CD, and infrastructure as code

• Strong grasp of system design, architectural patterns, and security best practices

• Strong communication and leadership skills, with the ability to drive cross-team projects

Bonus Points

• Experience with Redis, RabbitMQ, or other message brokers and caching systems

• Familiarity with Terraform, Docker, Kubernetes, and modern DevOps practices

• Experience with observability tools and performance monitoring

• Exposure to ElasticSearch, BigQuery, or other data warehouse tools

• Contributions to open-source projects

• A passion for games and gaming communities

Our Stack

• Backend: Java, Redis, RabbitMQ, Kubernetes, Terraform

• Cloud: Google Cloud Platform, AWS

• Frontend: Electron, React, Redux

• Native: C#, C++, Swift, Kotlin

• CI/CD & Infra: GitHub Actions, CircleCI, Salt, Docker

Why Join Us

At Medal, you’ll have the autonomy to make an impact from Day 1. You’ll join a team that values humility, curiosity, and momentum—and you’ll help shape the future of how gamers share and connect around the moments that matter most.

#LI-DH1