Server Engineer

About us

ForthStar is a unique games company based in Manchester, UK, on a mission to make big free-to-play hits. Established in 2023 by Playdemic Founders, Paul Gouge and Alex Rigby, and a team of exceptionally talented industry veterans, ForthStar's core belief is that the best games are made by highly accomplished teams with freedom for creative innovation.

Our mission is clear: to make great games that millions of people love to play every day for years. We take pride in our commitment to building exceptional, mass-appeal games with highly engaging core mechanics that captivate our players and become essential daily entertainment.

We believe in excellence and creative thinking and have a culture that promotes collaboration, innovation, and the continuous pursuit of better. We support each other to make ForthStar not just a workplace, but an inspirational space for creativity and professional growth. We are driven by our commitment to the service of our players and to each other.

About the role

As a Server Engineer, you will focus on building, maintaining, and optimising efficient and scalable systems to support the backend infrastructure for our mobile game applications. This role involves designing and implementing server-side logic, managing databases, and ensuring game performance for large numbers of players.

As a member of the backend team, you will work closely with other server engineers, data engineers, and designers to assist in code design and the creation of APIs, along with associated subsystems and development tools. You will contribute to the gameplay experience by implementing game rules, player interactions, and server-side logic. In addition to ensuring the stability of the game infrastructure, you will be responsible for the efficient storage, access, and management of game data. You will also implement security measures to protect our games from potential threats. You will work to improve server performance, reduce latency, and handle large player loads, sometimes analysing player behaviour to identify bottlenecks.

We are seeking an exceptional Server Engineer to join our incredibly talented team and contribute to our mission to make great games that millions of players love to play every day for years. 

Responsibilities

• Work with designers and coders to develop a scalable and robust backend cloud-based infrastructure to support large-scale mobile games.
  
• Design and implement RESTful APIs accessible by client applications.
  
• Assist in making technology decisions and integrating third-party services.
  
• Monitor code performance and optimise existing code solutions.
  
• Create and maintain technical documentation.

Essential skills 

• Approximately 3-5 years of experience in a similar role.
  
• A good understanding of web development and RESTful APIs using .NET Technologies, i.e., C#.
  
• Solid understanding of Relational Databases (e.g., SQL Server, MySQL etc.,).
  
• Hands-on experience of deploying and managing applications and services locally and on the cloud (AWS).
  
• Proficiency with Git version control.
  
• Strong problem-solving and analytical skills.
  
• Good understanding of software development principles and design patterns.

Desirable skills 

• A good understanding of NoSQL Databases (e.g., document, key-value stores, Redis, CouchDB, MongoDB, etc.).
• Knowledge of a CI/CD platform and associated tools, i.e., Jenkins.
  
• Experience with application performance monitoring, logging, and alerting tools within a cloud environment.
  
• Familiarity with infrastructure-as-code principles and tools, i.e., Terraform.
  
• Experience in the games industry is beneficial but not essential.

Recruitment Process

We are committed to hiring only the most talented individuals to fulfil our mission: to make great games that millions of people love to play every day for years. We conduct a fair and objective screening and interview process for all candidates. Our hiring decisions are based on how well each person's skills, experience and traits align with the job requirements and values of ForthStar. 

Diversity

As an equal opportunities employer, we are dedicated to building a diverse and inclusive team. We believe that our company should reflect the diversity of our audiences and the wider society we engage with.