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For Companies At a Glance
- Tasks: Lead backend development, set technical direction, and mentor a talented team.
- Company: Join Nexus Mods, the largest video game modding platform with a vibrant community.
- Benefits: Enjoy a 4-day work week, competitive salary, healthcare, and a gaming allowance.
- Other info: Flexible training budget and regular social events to connect with your team.
- Why this job: Make a real impact on a platform that powers millions of gamers and billions of downloads.
- Qualifications: Proven leadership in backend development, expertise in Ruby/Rails, and strong communication skills.
The predicted salary is between 100000 - 110000 ÂŁ per year.
Location: Remote, but within the UK.
Salary: ÂŁ100,000 - ÂŁ110,000
Please note: We are unable to sponsor international visas at this time.
About Nexus Mods
Established in 2001, Nexus Mods is the largest video game modding platform on the internet - a household name in the PC gaming ecosystem.
- 71M+ registered members
- 800K+ mods for 4,000+ games
- 21B+ mod downloads
We’re currently focused on product modernisation, driving growth and building infrastructure for the next 10 years of community-powered modding.
Our Role
We’re looking for a Head of Backend Development to lead the technical direction, architecture, and people behind the platform powering Nexus Mods. This role is both strategic and hands‑on. You will own the backend vision, set engineering standards, unblock teams quickly, and build a fast, pragmatic engineering culture. You will help scale a platform that handles billions of downloads, millions of gamers, and the data and install pipelines behind the Nexus Mods Desktop App. This is a key leadership role reporting into the Technical Director.
Responsibilities:
- Technical Strategy & Architecture
- Own the backend architecture: APIs, data models, pipelines, and service boundaries.
- Drive our backend‑first approach: push complexity into the backend, keep clients thin.
- Champion monolith‑first architecture and avoid service sprawl unless scale demands it.
- Set standards for API design, consistency, testing, observability, and developer experience.
- Guide critical decisions around metadata, mod manifests, dependency modelling, and install reliability for the Desktop App.
- Leadership & Team Growth
- Lead and mentor backend engineers across pods (Ruby/Rails, PHP and platform services).
- Create clarity through standards, expectations, architectural guardrails.
- Level up the team through coaching, technical guidance, and structured growth paths.
- Build a culture of ownership, pragmatism, collaboration and psychological safety.
- Promote the doctrines: simplicity, problem‑first thinking, documentation discipline, and quality.
- Delivery & Execution
- Ensure backend teams ship value weekly with predictable, fast delivery.
- Unblock engineers quickly bias to action over committee paralysis.
- Manage cross‑team dependencies and elevate blockers early.
- Balance short‑term delivery with long‑term platform health.
- Platform Stability & Scale
- Own uptime, performance, and resilience across mission‑critical systems.
- Partner with SRE/Infra to improve CI/CD, monitoring, logging and incident response.
- Ensure systems can scale to millions of users and billions of downloads.
- Lead root‑cause analysis and build a culture of calm, transparent incident handling.
Qualifications
- Proven experience in a senior engineering leadership or management role, within backend development, with recent years leading teams or technical groups.
- Deep expertise with Ruby and Ruby on Rails in high‑traffic environments.
- Strong background in building and scaling large web applications and APIs.
- Experience with relational databases (PostgreSQL preferred).
- Strong understanding of system design, distributed systems, caching, queues, job processing.
- Strong architectural instincts: monolith‑first, avoid service sprawl, pragmatic decisions.
- Experience with cloud infrastructure (AWS/GCP) and modern DevOps tooling.
- Excellent communicator who can reduce complexity and create alignment across teams.
- Calm, structured leadership during production issues and high‑pressure moments.
Bonus Skills
- Experience working on creator platforms, content distribution, or gaming products.
- Familiarity with modding ecosystems, dependency graphs, file pipelines, or game tooling.
- Experience building APIs consumed by Electron/.NET desktop apps.
- Experience modernising legacy systems while maintaining delivery (“Strangler pattern”).
We work a 4‑day week of 32 hours, with no reduction in pay.
An allowance of ÂŁ25 each month to spend on video games.
Employee Assistance Programme.
Private BUPA healthcare for you and your family.
A very flexible training budget.
Regular social events throughout the year. Participation is optional!
Head of Backend Development in London employer: Black Tree Gaming Limited
Contact Detail:
Black Tree Gaming Limited Recruiting Team
StudySmarter Expert Advice 🤫
We think this is how you could land Head of Backend Development in London
✨Tip Number 1
Network like a pro! Reach out to folks in the industry, especially those at Nexus Mods or similar companies. A friendly chat can open doors and give you insights that job descriptions just can't.
✨Tip Number 2
Show off your skills! If you've got a portfolio or GitHub with projects that highlight your backend expertise, make sure to share it. It’s a great way to demonstrate your capabilities beyond just a CV.
✨Tip Number 3
Prepare for the interview by diving deep into Nexus Mods' tech stack and culture. Knowing their backend architecture and how they handle high traffic will impress them and show you're genuinely interested.
✨Tip Number 4
Apply through our website! It’s the best way to ensure your application gets seen. Plus, we love seeing candidates who take that extra step to connect directly with us.
We think you need these skills to ace Head of Backend Development in London
Some tips for your application 🫡
Tailor Your CV: Make sure your CV is tailored to the Head of Backend Development role. Highlight your experience with Ruby, backend architecture, and team leadership. We want to see how your skills align with our needs!
Craft a Compelling Cover Letter: Your cover letter is your chance to shine! Share your passion for backend development and how you can contribute to Nexus Mods. Let us know why you're excited about this opportunity and what makes you a great fit.
Showcase Your Projects: If you've worked on any relevant projects, don’t hold back! Include links or descriptions of your past work that demonstrate your expertise in building scalable systems and APIs. We love seeing real-world examples of your skills.
Apply Through Our Website: We encourage you to apply directly through our website. It’s the best way for us to receive your application and ensures you’re considered for the role. Plus, it shows you’re keen on joining our team!
How to prepare for a job interview at Black Tree Gaming Limited
✨Know Your Tech Inside Out
Make sure you brush up on your knowledge of Ruby, Ruby on Rails, and backend architecture. Be ready to discuss your experience with high-traffic environments and how you've tackled challenges in scaling applications.
✨Showcase Leadership Skills
Prepare examples that highlight your leadership style and how you've mentored teams in the past. Nexus Mods is looking for someone who can create clarity and foster a culture of collaboration, so be ready to share your approach to team growth.
✨Understand Their Vision
Familiarise yourself with Nexus Mods' mission and recent developments. Being able to articulate how your vision aligns with their goals will show that you're genuinely interested in the role and the company.
✨Prepare for Problem-Solving Scenarios
Expect to face technical scenarios or case studies during the interview. Think about how you would handle system design challenges or incident responses, as this role requires calm and structured leadership under pressure.