Senior Software Engineer - Backend

About Us:

If you want to build, develop, and see your impact, join Skillz and level up your Career!

Skillz, the first publicly-traded mobile eSports platform that hosts billions of casual mobile gaming tournaments for millions of players worldwide, is revolutionizing the gaming industry. By fostering social competition within games, the Skillz platform helps developers build multi-million dollar franchises by enabling real-money activity in their games and providing operational support while connecting players through fair, enjoyable, and meaningful competition.

At Skillz, we understand the thrill of achievement and the satisfaction of overcoming challenges. Want to join a team made up of alums from Apple, Amazon, Google, Microsoft, Tesla, Twitter (X), Roblox, Zynga, Samsung, Lyft, EA, Riot, Nexon, Gameskraft, PlayStation, Unity, Scopely, Tinder, Intel, Deloitte, EY, Twitch, DraftKings, Wynn Resorts and more? Learn more to see if Skillz is the right fit for your next career move!

About the Role:

As a Senior Software Engineer, you’ll design, build, and operate the distributed backend services that power real-time gaming experiences. You’ll work across the full development lifecycle in an agile environment, from technical design through deployment and production operations. You’ll raise the bar for engineering quality, operational excellence, and customer impact.

This role suits someone who enjoys hard technical problems in low-latency, high-throughput systems, communicates clearly with engineers and leadership alike, and takes ownership of outcomes, not just tasks.

What You’ll Do:

• Design, develop, and maintain scalable, high-performance backend services in Golang and/or Java.
• Build and evolve distributed, multi-tiered systems using caching layers (Redis, Memcached) and relational databases.
• Develop low-latency, real-time applications that support live competitive gameplay.
• Set the standard for operational excellence and drive measurable improvements in customer SLAs and system KPIs.
• Balance paying down technical debt with shipping customer value.
• Explain technical challenges, trade-offs, and solutions through design documents, reviews, and presentations to audiences ranging from engineers to senior leadership and cross-functional partners.
• Deploy and run services on public cloud platforms (AWS, Azure, or GCP) and container orchestration platforms like Kubernetes.
• Mentor teammates and build a culture of ownership, quality, and accountability within the team.
• Work with product, design, and other cross-functional teams to turn business needs into solid technical solutions.

What We’re Looking For:

• 5+ years of professional software development experience in Golang and/or Java.
• Strong experience with distributed, multi-tiered systems, caching (e.g., Redis, Memcached), and relational databases.
• Experience building low-latency, high-performance applications in real-time systems.
• Proficiency with at least one major cloud provider (AWS, Azure, or GCP).
• Hands-on experience with Kubernetes or similar container technologies.
• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science or a related technical field, or equivalent industry experience.

Core Competencies

• Solid computer science fundamentals: object-oriented design, algorithm design, data structures, problem solving, and complexity analysis.
• Strong knowledge of public cloud services and modern service architectures.
• Excellent communication skills across formats (technical design docs, code reviews, external-facing presentations) and audiences (engineers, managers of managers, cross-functional teams).
• Comfort working in a fast-moving agile environment where every team member contributes across the full development lifecycle.

Nice to Have

• Experience in the gaming industry. If you haven’t worked in gaming but are passionate about building services that power games, we’d love to hear from you.

How You’ll Thrive at Skillz

• Customer obsessed: You think about the product and the customer first, and you approach work with a partnership mindset.
• Strategic thinker: You solve problems creatively and adapt as business needs change.
• Ownership: You care about the quality of your work and your team’s work, and you encourage the same in others.
• Execution: You deliver in a dynamic, agile environment and take responsibility end to end.
• Productive: You focus on results, not activity.
• Mission driven: You believe in making gaming better and bringing eSports to everyone.

Work Arrangement

This role is based in our Bengaluru office and requires working on-site 4 days a week.