Backend Server Engineer (MMORPG) - GCP

Soulbound, a cutting-edge indie game studio based in London, building a cross-platform MMORPG with pixel art aesthetics and browser-based access. We've built infrastructure for a single-shard game world that spins up localised regional clusters for instanced combat, delivering low-latency action RPG gameplay with the flexibility for players to play with anyone, from anywhere in the world, at any time. The game features real-time player-shared worlds, co-op dungeons, 10-player raids, player housing, questing, online and offline background crafting, auction houses, and live chat. All of it running simultaneously, all of it real-time. The Role We need backend engineers who can help us scale this infrastructure for launch and beyond. You'll work directly with our CTO on the systems that keep thousands of players connected, fighting, trading, and exploring in the same world simultaneously. Our backend is 60+ microservices running on Google Kubernetes Engine. Stateful game servers, event-driven architecture with Kafka, MongoDB and PostgreSQL databases, WebSocket real-time communication, and multi-cluster orchestration. The system works at current scale, your job is making it work at 10x that. This role is perfect for a passionate individual contributor eager to tackle some of the most thrilling, challenging, and distinctive problems in contemporary software development. The real-time demands of an online MMO present a one-of-a-kind opportunity, and we’re searching for the brilliant mind ready to dive into these intricate, interconnected systems. What You'll Do Build, optimise, and scale backend services powering real-time multiplayer gameplay Work with GKE, Helm, and Kubernetes to manage deployments and autoscaling for stateful game servers Improve observability: monitoring dashboards, alerting (Prometheus/Grafana or GCP Cloud Monitoring), and incident response Scale distributed databases (MongoDB, PostgreSQL) under high concurrent load Optimise Kafka event streaming for player actions, game state, and inter-service communication Identify and resolve bottlenecks before they become player-facing problems Improve resilience and prevent cascading failures across services Collaborate on architectural decisions with a small, senior engineering team Hands-on experience with Kubernetes (ideally GKE) in production Real experience scaling distributed systems under load. Worked with at least some of: MongoDB, PostgreSQL, Kafka, Redis, pub/sub systems Comfortable with monitoring stacks (Prometheus, Grafana, Alertmanager, or equivalent) Infrastructure-as-code experience (Terraform, Helm) Self-directed. Github/linkedin portfolio What Sets You Apart Experience with game backends or real-time multiplayer systems Passion for MMO gaming experiences and understanding of MMO products in the market. Worked with stateful server architectures (dedicated game servers) Experience with custom game server orchestration on Kubernetes Familiarity with Istio service mesh Previous work at a game studio, especially on live service/MMO titles A passion for the unique problems presented when operating a large scale MMO like this. 100% remote, must overlap significantly with UK (GMT/BST) hours. Contract role, 4-8 weeks initially with extension likely post-launch Full-time preferred, flexible for exceptional candidates Competitive salary / monthly rate. Become a valued member of our close-knit, passionate indie team of 25. Play a key role in creating a groundbreaking virtual world that will captivate and welcome millions of players.