Technical Lead – Online/Backend (March of Giants)
The person in this role serves as the reference point for all technological matters related to their specialty. They are a technical specialist responsible for analyzing issues in their area of expertise (technical specialty or game console), accountable for technological decisions, and for the performance of all systems within their domain. They continue to write code, define best practices, and provide mentorship within the team.
Specialty: Online / Backend (Games)
Within the online services of a multiplayer game (AAA/GAAS), the Technical Lead designs backend architectures, ensures resilience, scalability, and operability, and implements observability tools and CI/CD practices to deliver a smooth and reliable gameplay experience.
General responsibilities
- Manage technical mandates assigned by the IT Project Lead (CPI), the Team Lead (TL), or the Technical Architect.
- Act as a reference for all technical matters related to their specialty.
- Program at a senior level and take ownership of the highest‑risk elements within their domain.
- Suggest improvements and make technology decisions aligned with the project vision.
- Regularly measure performance and optimize systems as needed.
- Solve complex technical problems related to their specialty.
- Provide technical mentorship (knowledge sharing, best practices).
- Advise the Architect and/or CPI and propose corrective actions to meet objectives.
- Collaborate with technical directors from other disciplines (design, art, animation, audio, etc.).
- Participate in performance reviews alongside the CPI.
- Perform any other related tasks.
Online/Backend-specific responsibilities
- Design, architect, and implement backend services enabling player connectivity and interaction, ensuring resilience, scalability, and security.
- Gather requirements from multiple teams (design, gameplay, online, data, ops) and iterate on key features: authentication, matchmaking, sessions, progression, economy, telemetry, etc.
- Work closely with peers to ensure reliability, performance, and maintainability of the online ecosystem.
- Build and enhance observability: metrics, tracing, logging, alerting, SLO/SLI, health and capacity dashboards.
- Implement and evolve CI/CD pipelines for continuous integration, delivery, and deployment of online services.
- Define API standards (REST/gRPC), database modeling, versioning strategies, and live service compatibility.
- Contribute to live operations readiness and support (GAAS): load testing, performance/failover testing, runbooks, incident response.
Qualifications
Soft skills
- Strong analytical and problem‑solving abilities.
- Ability to understand and anticipate stakeholder needs; curiosity and exploration mindset.
- Excellent communication and interpersonal skills; ability to collaborate and influence.
- Autonomy, initiative, results‑focused mindset.
- Attention to detail, rigor, adaptability.
- Ability to manage change, ambiguity, and shifting priorities.
Education
- Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, or equivalent.
Relevant experience
- Minimum 3 years of programming experience on a specific console or technical specialty (or equivalent).
- Preferred for senior Online/Backend profiles:
- 5+ years developing backend systems and features for AAA/GAAS online games.
- Demonstrated experience in technical leadership, mentorship, and technology decision‑making.
Technical skills
Required / strongly preferred
- REST API design, relational and/or NoSQL database design.
- AWS (or equivalent cloud): compute, storage, networking, IAM, observability.
- CI/CD, infrastructure as code, automated testing, progressive deployments (canary / blue‑green).
- Observability: instrumentation, metrics, logging, tracing, alerting, SLO/SLI.
- Go programming (strongly preferred) or equivalent modern backend experience.
- C++.
Assets
- Knowledge of Unreal Engine 5 (or similar engines) and online integrations.
- Experience with live operations (GAAS), incident management, capacity & performance optimization.
- Knowledge of gameplay/online systems: matchmaking, sessions, parties, progression, economy, anti‑cheat, telemetry, etc.
Languages
- Proficiency in French and English, spoken and written (collaboration with multi‑region teams and partners).