Head of Backend Development

ZeptoLab is seeking a talented and passionate Head of Server-Side to join our team. The Head of Server-Side will play a critical role in the success of our future and current games by supervising all server development in the company and managing the team of Server-Side Developers.

You'll be making sure that our server-side related solutions meet the requirements and best practices of the market and build the server-side future of the company where hundreds of thousands of daily players get the best, most uninterrupted experience possible. As a people manager, you will be responsible for hiring, performance management, 360 and conducting 1:1s for a team of 5 server-side developers.

If you have experience in developing live systems, and you understand what it means to support a system with large user volumes, in addition to being interested and excited about working in these areas - this might be a great opportunity for you!

Responsibilities

• Define and drive company Server-Side strategy, OKR definition and staffing;
• Ensure high quality and stability of all current server systems and technologies;
• Lead and mentor a Server-Side Department, providing technical guidance and promoting a culture of knowledge sharing and excellence;
• Conduct 1:1 meetings with the Server-Side team, drive motivation, provide tailored growth opportunities and foster high performance culture;
• Identify areas of improvement in the teams and projects and promote good practices in development
• Work on implementation, deployment and maintenance of highly-scalable and available game/company backend components;
• Improve development process and communication;
• Contribute to best practices on reliability and availability.

Requirements

• Excellent knowledge of infrastructure architecture of server-side systems, highload performance maintenance, distributed system deployment, ability to communicate it to the team, overseeing implementation;
• Strong team management skills and passion for growing and supporting others;
• Strong leadership skills and ability to build effective relationships with cross-teams;
• Excellent problem-solving and result-oriented mindset;
• Excellent Java/Kotlin programming skills – a minimum of 7 years experience with server-side Java, concurrency handling, and distributed systems;
• Excellent experience with Linux shell and scripting languages;
• Knowledge of TypeScript and Go programming languages is highly recommended or willingness to learn it quickly;
• Knowledge of common devops practises (you will work in close collaboration with devops so it is important that you can talk with them on same technical language and participate in decision making processes);
• Database design and implementation skills, and good SQL knowledge, experience with NoSQL databases, Cassandra and Redis;
• Ability to think clearly under pressure. We aim for minimal downtime in our games, and you are expected to be able to respond to and troubleshoot a wide range of issues in a production environment;
• Strong communication in English, Russian is a plus.

Nice-to-haves

• Enthusiasm towards games in general;
• Familiarity with Nakama;
• Familiarity with Unity;
• Familiarity with C++;
• Familiarity with other JVM-based languages like Scala, and Groovy;
• Knowledge of network protocols and non-blocking IO;
• Understanding the challenges and caveats of large-scale distributed systems;
• Familiarity with concurrent, event-driven systems.

Why join us

• We do something magical and unique – we create great games – and we do it well;
• We operate in a challenging and rapidly growing mobile gaming industry;
• ZeptoTeam - is a cohesive team of enthusiastic professionals - so your input will be heard, and your role in the project will be weighty;
• Diversity and inclusion are important to us. ZeptoLab is committed to creating a diverse environment and is proud to be an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, colour, religion, age, gender, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, or disability;
• And at last – we'll offer you an attractive compensation package (from wages to social intangible elements. Package includes medical insurance, meals, transportation, fitness and a lot of additional services).