Lead Backend Engineer at PUBG Madison

We are PUBG, the global battle royale phenomenon! After the release of our flagship title in 2017 we have become one of the highest selling games of all time with over 75 million copies sold – that’s a lot of Chicken Dinners! And that's only the beginning: PUBG Madison is developing an exciting new IP that aims to push the shooter genre forward. If getting in on the ground floor of this awesome effort sounds exciting, we'd love to see you apply! 

Our state-of-the art studio and brand-new motion capture studio are in the heart of Madison, WI, a city frequently named the best place to live in the US for its vibrant culture, natural beauty, and outstanding educational institutions. Home to the prestigious University of Wisconsin, Madison is a hub for innovation and learning, offering top-notch public and private schools.  This family-friendly, progressive community has low crime rates and a strong commitment to sustainability. Experience the perfect balance of urban excitement and natural tranquility in a city with more than 200 miles of hiking and biking trails, an incredible downtown farmer’s market, gorgeous scenery and affordable cost of living. ||Don’t think you’re ready to make the move to Wisconsin? We’re also fully committed to support remote work for this position.|| 

The person we’re looking for:

PUBG Studios’ Madison, WI office is seeking a Lead Backend Engineer to take on a high impact role leading a cohort of teams developing the backend services of our next project.

As a key member of engineering leadership, you will contribute to the success of the PUBG team by working with multiple teams (internal and external) to design scalable, secure, and maintainable backend architectures. This position will make decisions about player data, APIs, services, and infrastructure to meet release goals, and oversee orchestration and deployment pipelines, monitoring tools, and response strategies for Live Service operations. Our team has a large amount of autonomy and responsibility, so you will have the opportunity to contribute across a large area of core systems. This position reports to the Technical Director and Shared Engineering Lead. 

Responsibilities:

• Drive development of backend services in an iterative environment to meet release goals
• Support gameplay features by building APIs to serve the data they need
• Implement social features and cross platform play
• Collaborate with other leads to build a plan for live service operations
• Delegate tasks to and handle requests for a collection of embedded, external studio, and contractors 
• Openly communicate with management and production about the scope and progress of tasks
• Proactively support the success of other team members by providing technical guidance, participating in code reviews, and mentoring junior team members 

A Typical Day May Include:

• Attend a cross-discipline stand-up with other developers
• Code and test as part of development
• A studio-wide play test
• Review code changes from other engineers and provide support via paired programming 
• Discuss ideas, improvements, or issues with other engineers, designers, and artists

Required Qualifications:

• 7+ years of experience driving backend service development
• Experience leading a technical team
• Experience with common cloud providers such as AWS, GCP, and Azure 
• Experience with containerization
• Ability to oversee and validate design specifications, inspect deliverables from external vendors, and perform maintenance tasks 
• Experience with infrastructure as code tooling
• Experience with observability techniques including logs, metrics, traces, and profiles
• Experience in designing and developing API backend servers for game services, such as matchmaking systems 
• Familiarity with solving problems for platform features and cross play
• Experience in the operation and maintenance of live gaming services 
• Experience designing scalable database architectures 
• Ability to write extensible, easily maintainable systems in C# or other
• Strong communication skills that support effective cross-team collaboration

Preferred Qualifications:

• Experience deploying applications to AWS EC2 or utilizing tools such as Kubernetes or ECS
• Experience working with a global, remote team and engaging in cross-cultural communication
• Experience in entitlements building online stores for monetization
• Implementation experience of platform social services
• Experience building a staff team 

What we offer:

• A highly competitive total compensation package   
• Comprehensive employer funded healthcare – ensuring you pay nothing out of pocket for in-network medical care 
• Employer-paid premiums for dental, vision, short & long-term disability, life insurance, and AD&D insurance     
• Generous benefits include 20 days PTO, 12 paid holidays and a studio-wide holiday break annually    
• 15 sick leave days annually to prioritize your well-being     
• Annual health & wellness, video game, and continuing education reimbursements 
• Industry-leading family planning and fertility care benefits, including gender-affirming care, through Carrot Fertility 
• Enjoy free catered lunches, meal reimbursements, and snacks and beverages for in office staff 
• Engage in regular team outings and events to foster a positive work culture 
• 401K with a company match for your financial well-being 

PUBG Studios provides equal employment opportunities to all employees and applicants for employment and prohibits discrimination and harassment of any type without regard to race, color, religion, age, sex, national origin, disability status, genetics, protected veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, or any other characteristic protected by federal, state or local laws. This policy applies to all terms and conditions of employment, including recruiting, hiring, placement, promotion, termination, layoff, recall, transfer, leaves of absence, compensation and training.