Server Engineer

About us: 

At Amber, we're always on the hunt for the most talented individuals in the industry to join our team. We're dedicated to delivering top-notch service to our customers and know that our employees are key to making that happen. We offer attractive compensation packages and plenty of chances to grow with us, and we're always on the lookout for ways to do things better. Our team works together towards common goals and we value each member's contributions to our mission of continuous improvement and innovation. 

About the role: 

We are seeking an experienced Backend/Server Engineer to join our team working on one of the top mobile social casino games (hundreds of thousands of daily players). This is a full-time remote contract position (40 hours/week, core hours 9am–5pm US Central Time) with no fixed end date.

You will primarily work on the PHP-based server-side development, ensuring it remains scalable, reliable, and feature-rich. You will also have the opportunity to contribute to the game's Unity-based client (C#) and its admin tools.

If you thrive on solving complex backend problems and want to see your work impact a massive audience, this could be the adventure for you.

What to expect from the process: Profile Preselection: Our Talent Acquisition team will review your profile.Talent Acquisition Screening: Selected candidates will be contacted to undergo an initial interview to discuss their experience, skills, and fit for the role.Test: Qualified candidates will be invited to complete an assessment to demonstrate their abilities.Interviews: Finalists will participate in technical and cultural interviews to assess their proficiency and compatibility with our team.The Quest: Develop and maintain backend features. Design, implement, and optimize server-side functionalities (primarily in PHP) for the mobile game's backend to support new game content and events.Ensure server reliability and performance. Quickly debug and fix server issues or performance bottlenecks to ensure a smooth experience for a large player base.Contribute to client-side when needed. While backend is your main realm, you won't hesitate to jump into C# (Unity) code to implement client-side aspects of features when needed.Collaborate and communicate. Team up with product managers, producers, designers, artists, and QA to plan, voice your ideas or concerns, and deliver features on time and to spec. Even as a remote team member, you always make your presence felt.Build LiveOps tools. Build and improve internal tools (including admin interfaces for A/B testing) to empower the team to manage live content and features.Follow Agile practices. Participate in sprint planning, provide accurate estimations, meet development milestones, and adapt to evolving priorities.The Skills: Extensive development experience. 7+ years of professional software development, with significant experience building backend systems, web services, or game servers.Backend expertise. Deep understanding of server architecture, having dealt with performance tuning, concurrency, scalability, and reliability.PHP proficiency. Strong knowledge of PHP, or at least one common server programming language (C#, Python, Java) and ability to very quickly become effective in our PHP codebase.English fluency. Excellent written and spoken English skills. Strong communication. Able to proactively communicate progress, flag issues, and ask for help. In meetings, even if you're the only remote participant, you speak up, stay engaged, and ensure nothing falls through the cracks.Ownership mindset. You take responsibility for your work. When you implement a feature, you ensure it's tested, stable, and delivered within the agreed timeframe. If something goes wrong, you're the first to dive in and fix it. When you encounter blockers, you don't wait to reach out and find answers.Debugging skills. Experience debugging complex issues in a live environment, quickly producing robust fixes.Adaptability. Thrives in picking up new technologies or diving into large codebases. Whether it's a new programming language or an unfamiliar codebase, you ramp up quickly and deliver results.Nice to have: Game development experience. Prior experience developing mobile games or similar apps.Unity (C#) experience. Experience with game engine Unity (C#) and ability to contribute to client-side code.LiveOps and analytics. Familiarity with live operations, feature flagging, and A/B test design.Tools & pipelines. Experience with version control (Git) and build pipelines (Jenkins).Database knowledge. Understanding of database design, optimization, and query performance (SQL and NoSQL, preferably Couchbase).High-scale systems. Experience with large player populations or high-traffic systems in production.The Reward: 

• Competitive project-based compensation
• Opportunity to work on exciting and diverse projects
• Clear communication and support throughout the project duration.
• Flexibility in project timelines and deadlines.
• Potential for long-term collaboration on future projects.
• Transparent and fair evaluation of your work.

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