Expert Online Services Software Engineer

About the role

Who We Are

Founded in 2023, Small Axe is the newest stand alone studio at 2K looking to push game development boundaries to bring 2K's next groundbreaking sports franchise to life. We're building a world-class team at our new Vancouver, BC location where our goal is to deliver an exceptional experience through bold ideas, technical excellence, and creative collaboration. We're seeking passionate and driven professionals across all areas of game development to help shape this ambitious vision. If you’re interested in tackling unique challenges and think you have what it takes to level up our team, we encourage you to apply!

What We Need

We’re looking for an Expert Online Services SE to help architect and build the scalable multiplayer backbone of our next AAA sports title. As a recognized subject matter expert in online services, you will contribute to the technical direction for our backend platform and own large systems end-to-end, primarily developing custom backend services and, where it makes sense, bridging that work into Unreal Engine dedicated server and client code. You’ll partner with designers, artists, producers, and engineering leadership to create seamless connected experiences while elevating the engineers around you. We value deep technical expertise, a collaborative mindset, and adaptability as our team and technology evolve together.

What You Will Do

- Architect, build, and own large-scale backend services that power our online features, from initial design through launch and live operations

- Set technical direction and engineering standards for our online services, influencing architecture and best practices across teams

- Lead technical planning for major online initiatives, producing technical designs, work breakdowns, and dependency analysis that enable execution across multiple engineers and teams

- Provide input on infrastructure cost modeling and capacity planning, such as projecting cloud costs from expected player populations

- Partner with design, art, production, and engineering leadership to shape online features, clearly articulating trade-offs between player experience, cost, and schedule

- Set the bar for clean, performant, and well-tested code through hands-on development and code and design reviews

- Mentor and coach engineers at all levels, contribute to hiring, and help shape our engineering culture

- Collaborate with publisher technology teams, platform partners, and external vendors on online infrastructure and services

What Will Make You A Great Fit

- 7+ years building backend services and online systems for games

- Expert proficiency in Go building production backend services

- Shipped and scaled live online services for millions of players

- Deep expertise in distributed, event-driven systems and networking protocols

- Proven technical leadership driving architecture and alignment across teams