Senior Backend Engineer

Senior Backend Engineer

The Senior Backend Engineer is responsible for building and maintaining the server-side systems that power DREST's luxury mobile game and supporting platform. This role plays a critical part in the performance, reliability, and scalability of our backend architecture, ensuring smooth operation of our live services and enabling feature delivery across the organisation. As a hands-on contributor, the Senior Backend Engineer designs, implements, and optimises backend services, collaborating closely with client, DevOps, QA and data teams. Reporting to the Lead Backend Engineer, you will also support technical planning and mentor other engineers, helping to shape the future of backend engineering at DREST.

Delivering high-quality, maintainable backend code and features on time, aligned with established codebase architectural standards and covered by tests

Supporting backend system performance and reliability, helping maintain a 99% uptime SLA

Contributing to incident response and resolution, ensuring 80% of P1 issues are resolved within SLA

Mentoring junior team members and supporting the Lead Backend Engineer in upholding team performance and code quality

Act as a hands-on contributor to backend codebases, mainly in TypeScript (Node.js), and associated infrastructure

Design, implement and extend robust APIs and microservices supporting gameplay, user management, platform and content management systems

Analyse business requirements and translate them into technical specifications and scalable backend systems

Write clean, tested, and maintainable code following engineering best practices

Work closely with product and game teams to ensure alignment of features with backend architecture

Collaborate with DevOps to ensure uptime, observability, and deployment reliability

Help shape the technical direction of the team through mentorship, code reviews, and technical discussions

Take ownership of complex systems and proactively address potential performance and scalability bottlenecks

Write and update feature and technical documentation for the systems under development

Assist QA in testing and deploying new features

What you'll bring

5+ years of experience developing and maintaining backend systems

Strong programming skills in at least one server-side language (e.g., Node.js/TypeScript, Python, Java, C#)

Proven experience with microservices, RESTful APIs, and scalable system architecture

Experience working with relational and NoSQL databases (e.g., PostgreSQL, MySQL, MongoDB, DynamoDB)

Solid understanding of backend infrastructure, caching, load balancing, and distributed systems (including Kafka-based microservice meshes)

Proficiency in Git and CI/CD workflows, with strong familiarity with tools like GitHub Actions, Jenkins, or similar

Knowledge of containerisation (Docker), cloud services (especially AWS), and infrastructure-as-code (Terraform is a plus)

A proactive mindset with strong debugging and performance optimisation skills

Excellent communication skills and the ability to collaborate effectively across disciplines

Comfortable mentoring junior engineers and leading by example

A willingness to be available outside standard working hours when needed to support critical issues or key deliveries

It would be a bonus if you have

Experience working on a live game microservices, APIs & content pipelines, or in the mobile gaming industry

Familiarity & expertise with multiple backend languages and runtimes (e.g. Typescript & node.js, C# and AWS dotnet lambdas, Go, the JVM) and understanding of the relative strengths and weaknesses of each

Understanding of Agile methodologies (Scrum, Kanban)

Bachelor's or Master's degree in Computer Science or equivalent experience