--- title: 'DevOps Engineer at Colonist' canonical: 'https://feeny.ai/job/devops-engineer-colonist-any-location-m425tgngz0ky' type: 'job' last_seen: '2026-10-11' --- # DevOps Engineer at Colonist - **Company:** Colonist - **Location:** Any Location - **Employment:** full-time - **Work type:** remote - **Posted:** 2026-09-29 - **Last confirmed live:** 2026-10-11 - **Apply:** https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/colonist/a8300c34-6aaf-415c-a247-5e0ce8556c5f ## Job description Wanted: Colonist DevOps Engineer Working Hours: We work asynchronously and value outcomes over hours Location: Fully Remote Compensation: Paid in USD. Negotiable based on experience and location ## About Colonist We're building the biggest digital board game platform on the internet. Players start 250k games every day. Last year: 60M games, 3,037 years of play. We're a fully remote, asynchronous team spread across multiple continents, focused on crafting extremely polished digital board games that people truly love. ## About The Role Most apps scale by splitting users apart. We can't. Players share one live game state. Every lag spike is felt mid-game. One viral video can 10x our traffic overnight. Your job: absorb 50k CCU without dropping a single game. You will own the infrastructure behind every game session: clusters, deploys, databases, the edge, and the path from merge to production. You will make our infra knowledge shared, so no system depends on one person. ## What You'll Do - Own the stack behind every game: game, matchmaking and lobby servers on Kubernetes - Manage cluster and cloud resources as code in Terraform - Scale servers up and down with live traffic. Pay for players, not idle machines - Ship updates often, without kicking players out of live games - Keep terabytes of game data and replays fast and cheap. PostgreSQL, Redis, NATS under real load - Defend the edge from bots and attacks. Cloudflare, rate limiting, Turnstile, R2. - Own observability across Sentry and New Relic. Consolidate monitoring and close the gaps - Document everything: systems, decisions, runbooks, so infrastructure knowledge lives in the team - Build self-service paths so other engineers use infrastructure confidently. - When something breaks, thousands notice in seconds. Find the root cause. Make it never recur ## Requirements - You love hard technical problems. Scale, latency and cost excite you - You have senior-level experience in DevOps - You have run Kubernetes in production: rollouts, autoscaling, networking, load balancers, and debugging a bad deploy - You run infra lean. You optimize before adding hardware - You document as you go. Runbooks and decisions are natural outputs of your work. - You are comfortable with Linux, Docker, and a CI system you did not build - You have operated PostgreSQL and Redis under real traffic: slow queries, connection limits, and schema migrations without downtime - You have run a message broker in production; we use NATS, but equivalent experience transfers - You have put Cloudflare, or a similar edge, in front of a public service - You can debug a live incident across app logs, metrics, the database, and the edge - AI-forward mindset. We see AI fluency as a real multiplier - Deeply independent. You learn a system from its code, configs and monitoring. - Strong written communication. You explain complex systems clearly in async settings, to technical and non-technical audiences alike - Collaborative by default. You share context proactively, help other engineers understand infrastructure, and never operate as a silo ## Nice to Have - Experience structuring documentation for AI consumption: machine-readable runbooks, structured architecture notes, agent-readable formats - Experience building self-service infrastructure paths for other engineers: golden paths, templates, or internal tooling - Security depth beyond the basics: threat modelling, access control, audit practices, governance guardrails - You've run real-time or multiplayer systems where shared state matters. - Previous experience as a solo or near-solo infrastructure engineer at a small company ## Our Values at Colonist We strongly adhere to these values in our team - if these resonate, then you'll love working here! Dependability We're self-driven players who deliver without needing supervision. When we commit to something, we make it happen. Ownership We take full responsibility and go beyond our roles to improve Colonist. Clear Communication In our remote environment, written communication is key. We're direct, structured, and always keep our team in the loop. Efficient Execution We move fast and focus on impact. Instead of getting stuck on perfect solutions, we find practical ways forward and get things done. Continuous Learning We're curious problem solvers who love a challenge. We constantly seek new ideas, embrace feedback, and aren't afraid to change our minds when we're wrong. ## Why Colonist - Your work ships to 3,6M+ yearly active players - We have hard problems, most engineers only read about: live shared state, viral spikes, lean scale - Async culture; deep work, no performative meetings - Unlimited vacation, yearly team offsite, full work equipment - Budget to experiment with any AI tool you want - Access to all company metrics and internal discussions ## About Colonist ## Company Overview - **One-liner**: Colonist builds a free-to-play, digital board game platform, starting with a highly polished alternative to Settlers of Catan, and aims to become the “Apple of digital board gaming.” - **Entity Type**: Private (Bootstrapped) - **Headquarters**: Remote (HQ in Portugal) - **Founded**: 2018 - **Founders**: Demi Yilmaz (Co-Founder) ## Core Business - **Primary Industry**: Computer Games / Digital Board Gaming - **Target Customers**: B2C – casual and competitive board game players globally (ages 13+) - **Mission / Purpose**: “Make multiplayer games players want to play” and “become the ‘Apple’ of digital board gaming, bringing that same quality to every classic game.” ## Products & Services - **[Colonist.io](https://colonist.io)**: Free online multiplayer board game platform. Currently focused on a Catan-inspired game, but the roadmap includes adding more classic board games with high polish. Web-based (no download or sign-up required) with a mobile app. ## Market Standing - **Valuation / Market Cap**: Not disclosed (private, bootstrapped) - **Key Metrics** (2025): - Yearly Active Players: **3.6 million** - Total Playing Time: **60 million hours** (≈ 3,037 years) - Games Played: **60 million+** - **Notable Investors/Partners**: No funding information available; bootstrapped from launch. - **Growth Signals**: - Headcount grew **+36.8% YoY** (from 15 to 22 employees) - Web traffic **+30.6% Yearly** (5.1M monthly visits) - Team operates across **10 countries** - Planning to add new game modes and a mobile-first performance overhaul ## Competitive Advantages - **Fully Remote & Async**: No fixed hours, minimal meetings, output-driven culture. - **Ownership Culture**: Equity/profit sharing? The careers page says “You will own a piece of Colonist.” - **Transparency**: All metrics, roadmap, and discussions are accessible to every team member. - **Fast Feedback Loop**: Work ships within days to a user base of 100K+ active players. - **Niche Focus**: Obsessive attention to quality on a single title before expanding – “Apple-like” approach to digital board games. ## Strategic Focus - Expand the platform with additional classic board games (beyond Catan). - Improve mobile-first performance and user experience. - Scale the team while preserving remote, async culture. - Continue to grow the active player base and engagement metrics. ## Why Work Here - **Culture**: “Modern-day gaming guild” – fully remote, asynchronous, self-motivated, output-driven. No unnecessary meetings. - **Flexibility**: Choose your own hours, work from anywhere. - **Growth**: “Level up on your own terms” with high-stakes challenges. Take ownership of your career development. - **Hiring Process**: Unique, hands-on process including a **paid trial day** working on real projects to evaluate fit. - **Notable Perks**: 100% remote, transparent decision-making, ownership stake, fast shipping to millions of players. - **Team**: 22 people across 10 countries; 38% technical roles. Strong async communication skills are a must. ## Sources 1. [Colonist Careers](https://colonist.io/careers) – culture, values, hiring process, yearly stats 2. [Built In – Colonist](https://builtin.com/company/colonist) – overview, perks, offices, and culture summary 3. [LinkedIn – Colonist](https://www.linkedin.com/company/colonist) – employee count, growth, locations, tech stack 4. 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