Senior Software Engineer

Role Summary

Volley’s product engineering team is looking for a Senior Software Engineer to drive product quality, scalable architecture, and robust engineering practices. You will be responsible for shipping high-impact features while ensuring software quality and reliability. This role involves collaborating with product, design, and engineering teams to optimize technical execution. You will provide technical leadership, mentorship, and process improvements to enhance team efficiency. This position requires hands-on coding, strategic decision-making, and continuous improvement in developer experience, testing, and deployment.

This job opportunity offers a hybrid work arrangement, and we are specifically seeking candidates who are comfortable with on-site attendance in our Bay Area office 3 times per week (MWF) and are either currently residing in or near the Bay Area or willing to relocate for on-site work.

What you’ll do at Volley

• Own the full-stack features you deliver from ideation through post-production maintenance.
  • Own service managing music content, including:
    • Implementing adaptive progression mechanics to present an appropriate level of difficulty for players.
    • Integrating content from various sources, music labels.
• Partner with other senior engineers to maintain a high technical bar, looking out for things like testing strategy, implementation patterns, developer experience, and delivery practices.
• Collaborate with product management and engineering management to scope initiatives.
• Demonstrate clear vision and an ability to make pragmatic design and delivery choices.
• Mentor, pair with, and up-level other engineers within the Volley organization.
• Work with product, design, and QA to ensure seamless feature delivery.

Stuff you may have done before

• Built and deployed consumer-facing applications or games at scale.
• Worked in fast-paced environments focused on rapid iteration.
• Led testing, automation, and developer workflow improvements.
• Designed and optimized distributed systems and scalable architectures.

Must-haves

• 6+ years of professional software development experience.
• Strong full-stack development skills with modern Node.js and TypeScript.
• Experience shipping production-ready code, know when to “buy” vs build.
• Deep knowledge of testing strategies.
• Strong cross-functional collaboration and mentorship abilities.
• Low ego, leads with empathy and kindness.

Our Stack

• TypeScript
• Node.js
• React
• Kubernetes
• PostgreSQL
• Redis
• Currently transitioning to Chromium-based development from Roku

The hiring process

• Stage 1: (Preliminary Screen): with our Senior Recruiting Lead
• Stage 2: (Engineering Panel): with various members of our engineering team
• Stage 3: (Onsite Interview): with various partners and team members
• Stage 4: (Founder Chat): with our Founders
• Stage 5:  (Offer)

Your First 90 Days

• Get oriented with the team, tech stack, and processes.
• Push production-ready code and contribute to PR reviews.
• Onboard into on-call rotation and take ownership of features.
• Lead a major feature from planning to delivery.

What’s in it for you

• Your medical, dental, and vision insurance is 100% covered by Volley, for yourself and all dependents and we match 401k!
• We offer a flexible, hybrid work-from-home and in-office work model.
• We offer 4 weeks of paid time off (enforced 2-week minimum), 16 paid holidays, 40 hours of bereavement leave, and unlimited sick days.
• Our generous parental leave policy includes 24 weeks at 100% pay for birthing parents and 12 weeks at 100% pay for non-birthing parents.
• We offer visa support for eligible candidates, making relocating for the job smoother and more streamlined.
• A full breakdown of our benefits is here!

For Pay Transparency: The base salary range for this position is $165,838-$228,028 annually, based on a local (San Francisco) hire. The final offer amount may depend on experience, education, skills, and location. Base pay is one part of the total package that is provided to compensate and recognize employees for their work.

About Us

Volley is the leading developer of AI-powered games for Amazon Alexa, Roku TVs, and mobile devices. Our games attract millions of users every month. Popular Volley games include Song Quiz, Jeopardy!, and The Price Is Right.

We believe voice interfaces will become the main way people access entertainment in their living rooms, kitchens, bedrooms, and cars. We’re building a bundled subscription product similar to Netflix or Spotify for the emerging category of “AI-powered games.”

Volley was founded by Max Child and James Wilsterman in 2016. We're headquartered in downtown San Francisco in the historic Phelan Building! We’re a quickly growing team that truly enjoys working together. If you think you would enjoy creating joyful games on top of a rapidly evolving AI technology stack, please get in touch!

Volley believes in an inclusive workplace and is committed to building a team from a variety of backgrounds. We will ensure that individuals with disabilities are provided reasonable accommodation to participate in the job application or interview process, perform essential job functions, and receive the other benefits and privileges of employment.

Underrepresented candidates and candidates from nontraditional backgrounds are strongly encouraged to apply!