---
title: 'Senior Backend Engineer - China at thatgamecompany'
canonical: 'https://feeny.ai/job/senior-backend-engineer-china-thatgamecompany-shanghai-3m6nz843fd8s'
type: 'job'
last_seen: '2026-11-02'
---

# Senior Backend Engineer - China at thatgamecompany

- **Company:** thatgamecompany
- **Location:** Shanghai, China
- **Employment:** full-time
- **Work type:** onsite
- **Posted:** 2024-09-06
- **Last confirmed live:** 2026-11-02
- **Apply:** https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/thatgamecompany/ea25d496-8b12-4dbd-9be4-daa4abdd12d8/application

**Skills:** Backend Development, Distributed Systems, Linux, macOS, Bash CLI, Python, Go, Erlang, C++, SQL, NoSQL, Message Queues, Cloud Providers, DevOps Tools, AWS, GCP, Kubernetes, CI/CD, MongoDB, PostgresSQL

> The Senior Backend Engineer leads the design and implementation of large-scale, highly available backend systems serving millions of concurrent players. Responsibilities include managing containerized stacks, monitoring system health, and ensuring zero downtime while maintaining agile development practices.

## Job description

Sky has an amazing and vibrant community of socially minded players, and we are tirelessly working on solutions to deepen player interaction and create lasting friendships. We are seeking an experienced Senior Backend Engineer to work on large-scale, highly available backend systems that serve thousands to millions of concurrent players and aim for zero downtime.

Responsibilities:

- Lead the engineering work in your expertise areas. Share knowledge with other team members, set up best engineering practices, and control code quality through reviews. Design and implement large-scale, highly available backend systems that serve thousands to millions of concurrent players and aim for zero downtime.
- Embrace modern container and cluster management technology to make our backend stack more elastic and robust.
- Improve and maintain an agile and reliable development environment for the backend stack, so that people with different skillsets in the company can do social experiments easily, and new hires can ramp up quickly.
- Monitor the backend health and respond to any failures or glitches to deliver a smooth online experience to players worldwide; keep improving dev-ops tools to make the job more automatic and error-proof.

Qualifications:

- Have deep passion and thoughts for video games; be a gamer and think on behalf of players.
- Be comfortable taking risks and accomplish engineering achievements that no one else has done.
- Enjoy working with fast-moving and rapidly-growing small teams.

Required Skills

- 5+ year or more experience in backend development and deployment in a production environment.
- Have a thorough understanding of scalable and highly available backend systems; be familiar with open-source distributed system tech stacks, including but not limited to scalable databases, caching strategy, distributed transactions, and dev-ops tools.
- Be able to extract useful information from different sources of logs, find correlations between multiple layers of systems, and diagnose failures, suspicious behaviors, and performance bottlenecks from bottom to top.
- Be comfortable working with the Linux ecosystem; be fluent in Linux or macOS bash CLI tools and Python scripting.
- Have deep knowledge of at least one of Go, Erlang, or C++.
- Have deep knowledge of at least one SQL and one NoSQL database. Have deep knowledge of at least one distributed message queue system.
- Eager to learn any new technology and always open to jumping out of your comfort zone. Experienced in managing production environments on Cloud provider service.
- Capable of understanding English documentation. Fluent in written English for technical
- communications in chat tools. Be able to speak English for daily life. Fluent in spoken English for professional communications.
- Experienced in building systems that involve eventually or strongly consistent distributed transactions.

## Preferred Skills

- Any of the following would be highly preferred, but most of all, we value engineers who are eager to learn new ways to deliver value to players:
- Deep understanding of Go, track the newest trend of language. Managed and maintained production environment on AWS or GCP. Deployed services in Kubernetes with CI/CD tools.
- Experienced in schema design and performance tweaking of MongoDB, PostgresSQL and Redis.
- Experienced NATS and Kafka development

We look forward to meeting you!

## About thatgamecompany

## Company Overview
- **One-liner**: thatgamecompany is an independent game studio dedicated to creating timeless, emotionally resonant interactive entertainment that inspires human connection worldwide.
- **Entity Type**: Private (Privately Held; last reported funding round in 2022 with $160M investment)
- **Headquarters**: Santa Monica, California, United States
- **Founded**: 2006 (founded on May 15, 2006)
- **Founders**: Jenova Chen, Kellee Santiago

## Core Business
- **Primary industry/industries**: Video games / Interactive entertainment
- **Target customers**: B2C – broad audience of all ages and backgrounds; mobile, console, and PC gamers
- **Mission or purpose statement**: “Create timeless entertainment that makes positive change to the human psyche worldwide.”

## Products & Services
- **[flOw (2007)](https://thatgamecompany.com/our-history/)**: A downloadable game originally a Flash title, remade for PlayStation Network with enhanced visuals and multiplayer. Focuses on intuitive, meditative gameplay.
- **[Flower (2009)](https://thatgamecompany.com/our-history/)**: A PS3 title where the player controls the wind to guide petals through landscapes. Evokes emotions of tranquility and wonder. Inducted into the Smithsonian’s permanent collection.
- **[Journey (2012)](https://thatgamecompany.com/our-history/)**: Award-winning PS3 game about a pilgrim crossing a desert towards a mountain. Known for its anonymous multiplayer cooperation and emotional storytelling.
- **[Sky: Children of the Light (2019)](https://thatgamecompany.com/our-history/)**: Free-to-play mobile/console/PC game (spiritual successor to Journey). Players explore magical realms, fly using capes, and meet other players. Available on iOS, Android, Nintendo Switch, PS4, and Windows. Reached 100 million installations by May 2021. Chosen as Apple’s iPhone Game of the Year 2019.
- **Upcoming fifth game (in development)**: Described by founder Jenova Chen as “like a theme park” and “the most ambitious game I have built.”

## Market Standing
- **Valuation/Market Cap**: Not publicly disclosed
- **Key Metric**: Annual Revenue – $17.8M (estimated 2025 data); Total Funding – $36.1M per LinkedIn (prior rounds) **plus** a $160M investment announced in March 2022 (with Pixar co-founder Edwin Catmull as advisor). (Sources conflict slightly; the $160M appears to be a later, larger round not reflected in the LinkedIn summary)
- **Notable Investors/Partners**: Benchmark (led Series A), Capital Today (led Series B), Edwin Catmull (advisor, former Pixar co-founder). Past partners include Sony Computer Entertainment (initial contract for three PlayStation Network games).
- **Growth Signals**: Headcount grew 16% YoY to ~198 employees; operates across 15 countries; Sky continues to expand platforms (Windows early access April 2024); active job postings: 24 (yearly trend +4.3%). Announced a new game jam (“thatgamejam”) in June 2025 focused on creativity and emotion.

## Competitive Advantages
- **Unique emotional design philosophy**: Games are designed by first mapping out desired player emotions rather than mechanics, creating experiences rarely found in mainstream gaming.
- **Artistic credibility and legacy**: flOw, Flower, and Journey are critically acclaimed and exhibited in museums like the Smithsonian. The studio is recognized as a pioneer of art games.
- **Broad accessibility**: Games are intuitive, controller-friendly, and designed to be enjoyed by people of all ages and cultures.
- **Long-term relationship with a passionate community**: Sky has a dedicated player base with millions of installations, supported by live operations and regular content updates.
- **Creative autonomy**: The company prioritizes innovation over blockbuster financial pressure, enabling risk-taking on emotionally rich projects.

## Strategic Focus
- **Expanding Sky: Children of the Light** – continued platform releases, live content, and regional brand growth (e.g., dedicated brand managers for Indonesia, China).
- **Developing the next-generation title** – described as “the most ambitious” yet, with a theme-park-like scale.
- **Deepening AI and machine learning capabilities** – open positions for Senior Machine Learning Engineer and Full-stack Engineer (AI application focused) indicate investment in AI-driven gameplay or operations.
- **Fostering internal creativity** – initiatives like thatgamejam encourage experimentation across the studio.
- **Strengthening global presence** – operating in 15 countries with localized teams for publishing, support, and marketing.

## Why Work Here
- **Culture**: The studio describes itself as “compassionate, creative” and values “integrity and personal growth within an environment of intense collaboration and experimentation.” Employee rating on LinkedIn: 4.2/5.0 (11 reviews), with Culture score 4.3, Work-Life 4.2, Compensation 4.2, Career 4.1.
- **Remote/Hybrid/Office Policy**: Not explicitly stated in provided sources, but headquarters in Santa Monica, California is a physical studio. The company previously planned a second studio in SF Bay Area (cancelled due to COVID) and now operates distributed across 15 countries, suggesting flexible/remote options are possible.
- **Notable Perks & Engineering Culture**: Emphasis on “making magic” and pushing artistic boundaries; tech stack includes Kubernetes, Docker, Prometheus, Protobuf, Tableau, microservices, and GitHub. Employees come from top entertainment/tech companies (Pixar, Blizzard, Riot Games, Amazon, Unity, etc.), indicating a high-caliber peer group.
- **Growth Opportunity**: With 24 active job postings (including Engineering, AI, Art, Marketing, Data) and a yearly hiring trend +4.3%, the studio is expanding. Roles such as Senior Data Analyst, Senior Machine Learning Engineer, and 3D Environment Artist signal opportunities to work on flagship products.
- **Mission-driven work**: Opportunity to contribute to games that aim to make a positive impact on players’ lives and expand the emotional range of the medium.

## Sources
1. [thatgamecompany.com – Official Site, About, Careers, News](https://thatgamecompany.com/)
2. [thatgamecompany Careers Page](https://thatgamecompany.com/careers/)
3. [LinkedIn Company Profile for thatgamecompany](https://www.linkedin.com/company/thatgamecompany)
4. [Wikipedia – thatgamecompany](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ThatGameCompany)
5. [thatgamecompany – Our History](https://thatgamecompany.com/our-history/)

## Other roles at thatgamecompany

- [Project Manager, Creative Services (Contract)](https://feeny.ai/job/project-manager-creative-services-contract-thatgamecompany-united-states-tqfbbstq3rcm) — United States
- [Senior Engine Programmer](https://feeny.ai/job/senior-engine-programmer-thatgamecompany-united-states-bthpk0sccwmr) — United States
- [IT Support Specialist](https://feeny.ai/job/it-support-specialist-thatgamecompany-los-angeles-s9mfzmmxp6a9) — Los Angeles, CA
- [Staff Systems Software Engineer](https://feeny.ai/job/staff-systems-software-engineer-thatgamecompany-united-states-2xspsxd4nkfa) — United States
- [Game Engine Engineer](https://feeny.ai/job/game-engine-engineer-thatgamecompany-shanghai-b7ge525n3wyc) — Shanghai, China
- [3D Character Artist (Mid-Senior)](https://feeny.ai/job/3d-character-artist-mid-senior-thatgamecompany-united-states-hnr65zscpf8x) — United States
- [Build Engineer](https://feeny.ai/job/build-engineer-thatgamecompany-united-states-188c9cwh2mnb) — United States
- [Technical Game Designer](https://feeny.ai/job/technical-game-designer-thatgamecompany-shanghai-gm4tx8xkhkr4) — Shanghai, China
- [UGC & Creator Community Specialist](https://feeny.ai/job/ugc-creator-community-specialist-thatgamecompany-shanghai-sfsxkhkb70sp) — Shanghai, China
- [IP & Experiential Marketing Manager](https://feeny.ai/job/ip-experiential-marketing-manager-thatgamecompany-shanghai-sqyjzh1vnj0e) — Shanghai, China