Staff Backend Engineer – Platform | Gather | Remote (United States)

<h2>About us</h2>
<p class=" text-gray-200 text-base sm:text-lg leading-relaxed mb-3">In the last few years, remote and hybrid work has had an explosion in popularity, giving workers an unprecedented level of access to opportunity and an increase in quality of life. However, our existing tools were not set up to do remote work <em>well</em>. Work can be isolating, transactional, and void of the camaraderie that makes everyone feel like they’re in it together.</p>
<p class=" text-gray-200 text-base sm:text-lg leading-relaxed mb-3">To solve this, Gather builds virtual offices that bring the best of in-person work to remote. We’ve already seen success with our approach, with over 10,000 remote-first companies using our spaces every day.</p>
<p class=" text-gray-200 text-base sm:text-lg leading-relaxed mb-3">And yet it’s still the early days for our broader vision of the Metaverse. We’re excited about how the Metaverse can break down physical constraints that exist today, not just in where you can work, but which friends/family you can see, or what educational opportunities you can have access to.</p>
<p class=" text-gray-200 text-base sm:text-lg leading-relaxed mb-3">Join us in this mission!</p>
<p class=" text-gray-200 text-base sm:text-lg leading-relaxed mb-3"><strong class=" font-semibold">Role overview:</strong></p>
<p class=" text-gray-200 text-base sm:text-lg leading-relaxed mb-3">Backend Engineers at Gather design and implement the complex systems that underlie what is simultaneously a live video chat platform, multiplayer game, and modern web app. The thoughtful design of the foundation that everything is built upon is essential not only to support the current feature set and usage of Gather but also to allow for rapid experimentation with future directions and to scale to the next million Gather users.</p>
<p class=" text-gray-200 text-base sm:text-lg leading-relaxed mb-3">Take ownership the Gather Platform and design a mature, scalable and reliable set of services that tie together our game engine, audio/video systems, and app-driven virtual spaces!</p>
<p class=" text-gray-200 text-base sm:text-lg leading-relaxed mb-3"><strong class=" font-semibold">Where you will make an impact:</strong></p>
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<li class=" leading-snug mb-2 pl-2"><span class="text-gray-200">Performance tune the game service to support thousands of users per space</span></li>
<li class=" leading-snug mb-2 pl-2"><span class="text-gray-200">Build (and secure) a web socket API that enables anyone to enhance Gather with their own arbitrary game logic</span></li>
<li class=" leading-snug mb-2 pl-2"><span class="text-gray-200">Expand the expressiveness of objects and build the first few examples (think levers which cause [anything], projectiles, sounds, etc)</span></li>
<li class=" leading-snug mb-2 pl-2"><span class="text-gray-200">Improve the reliability, scalability, and performance of the video system through better architecture, testing, and monitoring</span></li>
<li class=" leading-snug mb-2 pl-2"><span class="text-gray-200">Rearchitect the game service to be stateless and massively parallelized</span></li>
<li class=" leading-snug mb-2 pl-2"><span class="text-gray-200">Build a plugin system that allows anyone to use community-created add-ons</span></li>
</ul>
<p class=" text-gray-200 text-base sm:text-lg leading-relaxed mb-3"><strong class=" font-semibold">What you bring:</strong></p>
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<li class=" leading-snug mb-2 pl-2"><span class="text-gray-200">Demonstrated excellence in distributed systems fundamentals</span></li>
<li class=" leading-snug mb-2 pl-2"><span class="text-gray-200">5+ years of experience shipping systems and infrastructure components at a great scale</span></li>
<li class=" leading-snug mb-2 pl-2"><span class="text-gray-200">Experience working with Typescript and NodeJS</span></li>
<li class=" leading-snug mb-2 pl-2"><span class="text-gray-200">A keen intuition for well-designed software and well-written code</span></li>
<li class=" leading-snug mb-2 pl-2"><span class="text-gray-200">Intrinsic motivation and the drive to own and solve difficult problems without guidance</span></li>
<li class=" leading-snug mb-2 pl-2"><span class="text-gray-200">Excellent interpersonal and communication skills, with technical leadership abilities</span></li>
<li class=" leading-snug mb-2 pl-2"><span class="text-gray-200">A healthy tolerance for the chaotic balance between Doing Things Right and iterating and shipping quickly</span></li>
</ul>
<p class=" text-gray-200 text-base sm:text-lg leading-relaxed mb-3"><strong class=" font-semibold">US Salary Range</strong></p>
<p class=" text-gray-200 text-base sm:text-lg leading-relaxed mb-3">At Gather, compensation may vary outside of this range depending on a number of factors, including a candidate’s qualifications, skills, competencies and experience, and location. The base salary range for this position in the selected city is <strong class=" font-semibold">$187,850 &#8211; $237,575</strong> annually and we encourage candidates outside of this salary range to apply.</p>
<p class=" text-gray-200 text-base sm:text-lg leading-relaxed mb-3">Base pay is one part of the total package provided to compensate and recognize employees for their work, and this role will be eligible for a stock reward reflective of an early-stage startup.</p>
<p class=" text-gray-200 text-base sm:text-lg leading-relaxed mb-3"><strong class=" font-semibold">Benefits</strong></p>
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<li class=" leading-snug mb-2 pl-2"><span class="text-gray-200">Work remotely out of a state-of-the-art virtual office!</span></li>
<li class=" leading-snug mb-2 pl-2"><span class="text-gray-200">Competitive compensation, benefits, and meaningful equity</span></li>
<li class=" leading-snug mb-2 pl-2"><span class="text-gray-200">Comprehensive medical, dental, and vision insurance for employees and their dependents</span></li>
<li class=" leading-snug mb-2 pl-2"><span class="text-gray-200">401k and matching program</span></li>
<li class=" leading-snug mb-2 pl-2"><span class="text-gray-200">Generous PTO policy and mental health days to recharge</span></li>
<li class=" leading-snug mb-2 pl-2"><span class="text-gray-200">Meal stipend twice a week to keep you nourished</span></li>
<li class=" leading-snug mb-2 pl-2"><span class="text-gray-200">Remote work, education, and health &amp; wellness stipend</span></li>
<li class=" leading-snug mb-2 pl-2"><span class="text-gray-200">Support for family planning &amp; gender-affirmation</span></li>
<li class=" leading-snug mb-2 pl-2"><span class="text-gray-200">The opportunity to join a passionate team in building something that actually makes peoples&#8217; lives better, every single day</span></li>
</ul>
<p class=" text-gray-200 text-base sm:text-lg leading-relaxed mb-3"><em>Gather is committed to building an inclusive and equitable workplace for individuals of all backgrounds. We strive to build a workplace where employees feel comfortable bringing their authentic selves to work, everyday. Qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, ethnicity, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender perception or identity, national origin, age, marital status, pregnancy or parental status, protected veteran status, disability status, or any other basis prohibited by law. Additionally, we&#8217;re committed to providing access, equal opportunity and reasonable accommodation for individuals with disabilities in employment. If reasonable accommodation is needed to participate in the job application or interview process, to perform essential job functions, and/or to receive other benefits and privileges of employment, please notify the recruiter you are working with. We also ask that all applicants consider answering the voluntary demographic questions on our job application to help us track the inclusivity of our recruiting efforts and programs. Answering these questions is entirely voluntary and your answers will not be shared with the hiring team and will not impact the hiring decision.</em></p>