Senior Backend Software Engineer - Metagame Features

Established in 2020, the Singapore Studio is Riot’s second international game development studio. Riot has been expanding our footprint in Asia and accelerating our talent growth to develop games that deliver great experiences to our players. Our mission is to “scale Riot’s games to hyper-serve players.”

We partner with our LA headquarters on game development for League of Legends, Teamfight Tactics, and Legends of Runeterra. We’re also building teams for VALORANT and 2XKO, our upcoming fighting game. The Singapore Studio is seeking talented, passionate craft experts with backgrounds in all areas of game development to build games that make it better to be a player. 

We’re focused on working together to promote individual autonomy, ownership, collaboration, and inclusivity, so everyone can be their best while we boldly pursue games.

That’s where you come in.

As a Senior Backend Engineer on the Metagame team for 2XKO, you will be a key contributor to building the systems and services that support our players outside of the core fight. From progression and competitive features to content systems and player identity, the metagame is where long-term engagement lives.

You’ll be responsible for designing, building, and maintaining scalable backend systems that power these experiences. You’ll collaborate across disciplines (designers, artists, producers, QA) to help deliver features that are reliable, maintainable, and exciting for players. Your deep backend expertise will shape how we architect, test, scale, and operate our services in production. 

This role reports to the Engineering Manager for the Metagame team.

Responsibilities

• Design and operate backend microservices that enable 2XKO’s metagame features, such as progression, content pipelines, and player profiles.
• Partner closely with cross-functional teams to build scalable systems from concept through live operation.
• Apply and uphold best practices in software engineering: service reliability, observability, maintainability, and performance.
• Participate in live service support, including on-call rotations for operational health and player impact mitigation.
• Conduct thoughtful, constructive code reviews and provide mentorship to other engineers.
• Champion a culture of collaboration, quality, and player empathy.

Required Qualifications

• 5+ years of professional experience as a backend or full stack software engineer.
• Strong programming skills in Java, Go, or similar languages.
• Experience designing and deploying microservices in a distributed systems environment.
• Hands-on experience with cloud computing platforms (e.g., AWS, GCP) and containerization (e.g., Docker, Kubernetes).
• Solid understanding of concurrency, scalability, and performance in backend systems.
• Familiarity with RESTful APIs, WebSockets, and data formats such as JSON.
• Comfortable working with live products and owning operational health of services.
  
  

Desired Qualifications

• Experience developing backend systems for games or player-facing applications.
• Understanding of networking fundamentals (HTTP, TCP/IP, routing).
• Experience with NoSQL solutions like Redis or DynamoDB.
• Exposure to or interest in game engine technologies (e.g., Unreal Engine).
• Bonus: Experience with full stack development or JavaScript frameworks like React.js.

For this role, you'll find success through craft expertise, a collaborative spirit, and decision-making that prioritizes the delight of players. We will be looking at your past studies, experience, and your personal relationship with games. If you embody player empathy and care about players' experiences, this could be your role!

Who You Are

You bring a mix of technical excellence, player empathy, and a collaborative spirit. You care deeply about building reliable systems that serve players, and you take pride in shaping technology that powers meaningful game experiences. If you’re excited to work on a game that blends deep competitive mastery with genre-defining systems, 2XKO could be the place for you.

Our Perks

• Full relocation support
• Full health insurance for you, your spouse and children
• Open paid time off
• Retirement benefits with company matching
• Life insurance, parental leave, plus short-term and long-term disability
• Play Fund so you can broaden and deepen your knowledge of our players and community through games
• We will double down on your donations of time and money to non-profits