Service Design & Architecture
• Design and build scalable, resilient web services in Java and/or Scala that support game client needs across PC, console, and mobile
• Own the data model — choose the right store (MongoDB for flexible document storage, DynamoDB for key-value at scale, Redis for caching and session state) and justify it
• Design REST APIs that game clients actually integrate well against — clear contracts, versioned, documented, forgiving of client-side variation
• Architect for the load profile of a live game: average load, launch spikes, event peaks, and graceful degradation when upstream dependencies fail
• Define and enforce service boundaries — knows where one service ends and another begins, and why
AWS Infrastructure & Deployment
• Build and maintain AWS infrastructure using IaC tooling (CDK, Terraform, or CloudFormation — confirm what’s in use on the engagement)
• Own the deployment pipeline for services they build: CI/CD configuration, environment promotion, rollback capability
• Right-size AWS resources for cost and performance — does not default to over-provisioning and does not leave obvious cost inefficiencies
• Familiar with the AWS services relevant to game backends: EC2, ECS/EKS, Lambda (where appropriate), API Gateway, ElastiCache, SQS/SNS, CloudWatch, S3
• Understands the network and security posture of services exposed to game clients — VPC design, security groups, IAM least privilege, secrets management
Live Operation & Observability
• Instruments every service for production readiness: structured logging, metrics, distributed tracing, health checks, and alerting before it goes live — not after the first incident
• Monitors services in production: reads dashboards, interprets anomalies, distinguishes noise from signal
• Responds to production incidents in services they own — has on-call responsibilities commensurate with service criticality
• Writes post-mortems and follows through on structural improvements so the same failure mode does not recur
• Understands the difference between a symptom and a root cause — does not fix symptoms
Cross-Platform Client Integration
• Works directly with game client engineers (PC, console, mobile) to define integration contracts, review client-side usage patterns, and debug integration issues
• Understands the constraints of each platform environment: console certification requirements around network usage, mobile data sensitivity, PC permissiveness — and designs service interfaces accordingly
• Owns the integration surface: API documentation that is correct, versioned, and kept up to date as the service evolves
• Participates in client-facing technical reviews where backend service design is on the table
Quality & Engineering Standards
• Writes unit and integration tests as a first-class output — not an afterthought
• Code reviews: gives specific, actionable feedback and receives it without defensiveness
• Maintains service documentation: architecture decisions, operational runbooks, known limitations, dependency map
• Raises technical debt explicitly — names it, quantifies its cost, and proposes a remediation path