Associate Principal Software Engineer

Job Title:

Associate Principal Software Engineer, Matchmaking - Demonware (Vancouver)

Requisition ID:

R025872

Job Description:

Your Mission

Demonware is looking for a talented new Associate Principal Software Engineer to join our Matchmaking team!

As part of the team, you’ll be responsible for developing and operating the services that get our players into great games, optimizing the experience for engagement, fairness, and fun.

You’ll partner closely with studio engineers, data scientists, and product managers to evolve our matchmaking algorithms at massive scale, while delivering continuous improvements to player experience through innovation, data-driven iteration, and operational excellence.

We’re looking for someone who is a senior technical contributor that will be responsible for architecting, building, and optimizing those large-scale matchmaking systems, and who will lead high-impact initiatives from design to deployment, guide experimentation frameworks, and ensure our systems meet stringent reliability, scalability, and performance goals.

What you bring to the table 

• Partner with studios to architect, implement, and operate scalable, low-latency matchmaking services that handle millions of players daily.

• Lead design discussions, code reviews, and technical deep dives to maintain engineering excellence.

• Champion best practices in service architecture, performance optimization, and fault tolerance.

• Collaborate with data scientists to implement and operate A/B tests and analyze player experience metrics.

• Integrate real-time feedback loops and machine learning signals into matchmaking decision-making.

• Own services end-to-end: from development to deployment, monitoring, and incident response.

• Define and track SLOs, SLIs, and KPIs for matchmaking performance and player experience.

• Mentor and coach engineers across the matchmaking and wider Demonware engineering community.

Player Profile

Minimum Requirements:

• 15+ years of professional software development experience, with a track record of delivering large-scale distributed systems.

• Expertise in at least one backend language (Python preferred) and experienced with modern service frameworks and orchestration tools (e.g., Kubernetes, Docker).

• Expertise in C++.

• Proven ability to design, optimize, and operate real-time, high-throughput, low-latency systems.

• Strong background in algorithms, data structures, and performance tuning.

• Experience in experimentation platforms, heuristic optimization, or machine learning in production systems.

• Deep understanding of networking fundamentals, including latency management and connection quality metrics.

• Skilled in monitoring, observability, and incident response for production services.

Extra Points:

• Experience with matchmaking systems or large-scale game services.

• Experience with game engines (Unreal Engine, Unity, etc.).

• Experience with Machine Learning and Data Analytics.

• Familiarity with multi-objective optimization, reinforcement learning, or similar advanced techniques.

Your Platform

Demonware is a member of the Activision family of studios. We work alongside engineers and creatives at our AAA partner studios and deliver the online and data services required by our massive franchises. We have launched well over 100 games, and our services connect multiple millions of players each day into epic entertainment experiences.

While Call of Duty continues to push us to build bigger and better systems year on year, we also have a strong history of supporting great franchises such as Tony Hawk, Crash Bandicoot, Destiny, Diablo, Guitar Hero, and Skylanders.

Our success comes from our talented and passionate people. Our work environment is welcoming and collaborative, we deliver on time and at scale.

Our World

At Activision, we strive to create the most iconic brands in gaming and entertainment. We’re driven by our mission to deliver unrivaled gaming experiences for the world to enjoy, together. We are home to some of the most beloved entertainment franchises including Call of Duty®, Crash Bandicoot™, Tony Hawk’s™ Pro Skater™, and Guitar Hero®. As a leading worldwide developer, publisher and distributor of interactive entertainment and products, our “press start” is simple: delight hundreds of millions of players around the world with innovative, fun, thrilling, and engaging entertainment experiences.

We’re not just looking back at our decades-long legacy; we’re forging ahead to keep advancing gameplay with some of the most popular titles and sophisticated technology in the world. We have bold ambitions to create the most inclusive company as we know our success comes from the passionate, creative, and diverse teams within our organization.

We’re in the business of delivering fun and unforgettable entertainment for our player community to enjoy. And our future opportunities have never been greater — this could be your opportunity to level up.

Ready to Activate Your Future?

We love hearing from anyone who is enthusiastic about changing the games industry. Not sure you meet all qualifications? Let us decide! Research shows that women and members of other under-represented groups tend to not apply to jobs when they think they may not meet every qualification, when, in fact, they often do! We are committed to creating a diverse and inclusive environment and strongly encourage you to apply.

We are committed to working with and providing reasonable assistance to individuals with physical and mental disabilities. If you are a disabled individual requiring an accommodation to apply for an open position, please email your request to [email protected]. General employment questions cannot be accepted or processed here. Thank you for your interest.

The video game industry and therefore our business is fast-paced and will continue to evolve. As such, the duties and responsibilities of this role may be changed as directed by the Company at any time to promote and support our business and relationships with industry partners.

We are an equal opportunity employer and value diversity at our company. We do not discriminate based on race, religion, color, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, age, marital status, veteran status, or disability status, among other characteristics.

Rewards

We provide a suite of benefits that promote physical, emotional and financial well-being for 'Every World' - we've got our employees covered! Subject to eligibility requirements, the Company offers comprehensive benefits including:

• Extended health plan, including medical, dental, vision, life and AD&D insurance, for employees and their dependents, as well as disability insurance;
• RRSP with Company match, tuition reimbursement, charitable donation matching;
• Paid holidays and vacation, paid sick time, compassion and bereavement leaves, parental leave;
• Mental health & wellbeing programs, fitness programs, free and discounted games, and a variety of other benefit programs like supplemental life & critical illness, legal service, and others;
• If the Company requires that you move geographic locations for the job, then you may also be eligible for relocation assistance.

Eligibility to participate in these benefits may vary for part time and temporary full-time employees and interns with the Company.

The standard base pay range for this role is $143,692.50 - $303,715.00 CAD. These values reflect the expected annualized base pay range of new hires in British Columbia, Canada. Actual amounts will vary depending on experience, performance and location. In addition to a competitive base pay, employees in this role may be eligible for incentive compensation. Incentive compensation is not guaranteed.