Staff Backend Software Engineer in London

At EFG (ESL FACEIT Group) we create worlds beyond gameplay where players and fans become community. We pride ourselves in having a corporate social responsibility which is that "IT'S NOT GG, UNTIL IT'S GG FOR ALL". We are passionate about the culture we foster that ultimately helps to create and shape the world of esports, gaming tournaments, leagues, events and holistic ecosystems staged for our millions of players, fans and heroes. Everything we do, from global esports tournaments and community-driven leagues to next-generation platforms and live events, is rooted in our passion, craftsmanship, and culture. With millions of players and fans around the world, we aim to shape the future of esports and gaming by building ecosystems that are inclusive, innovative, and enduring.

About FACEIT: As one of the core pillars of EFG, FACEIT is the beating heart of competitive online gaming. Our platform is where gamers of all levels come together to test their skills, climb the ranks, and forge communities. We push the limits of technology, deliver cutting-edge features, and provide an unparalleled competitive gaming experience.

The Role: We're looking for a Staff Software Engineer - Backend to join our Central Platform Team, the group responsible for building and maintaining the core runtime systems that form the foundational layer of our stack. You'll own and deliver projects end-to-end across teams and functions, make technical decisions that multiple teams depend on, and help shape the overall technical direction of the platform. You pair deep technical expertise with relentless curiosity about why complex systems behave the way they do, and you treat modern AI tooling as a way to move faster without ever losing your grounding in solid engineering fundamentals.

• Reliability: keep core services healthy at scale, covering observability, SLOs and error budgets, performance, capacity, and designing for graceful degradation and contained blast radius;
• Tooling & Delivery: improve our CI/CD pipelines and build the internal tools that help the broader team ship faster and more safely, and aren't afraid to work in unfamiliar parts of the stack, including the frontend, when the problem calls for it;
• Technical Direction: contribute to the overall technical direction of the platform, making decisions and delivering projects that span multiple teams and functions, and setting the patterns and standards others build on;

You understand techniques such as the 5 Whys, drive root cause analysis as part of a blameless post-mortem culture, and turn production anomalies into systemic fixes.

What We Are Looking For:

• Core Technical Expertise: You are an Expert in Go, with a proven track record of shipping production-grade backend systems; Deep experience architecting, modeling, and optimizing both NoSQL and SQL data stores (specifically MongoDB, Postgres, and Redis/Valkey);
• Reliability & Systems Thinking: Strong reliability and operational knowledge, spanning observability, SLOs, performance and capacity, and designing systems to fail gracefully under load; Proficiency with AI-assisted development workflows to maximise efficiency;
• Bonus Points: Gaming Passion: a genuine passion for gaming and esports; Mentorship: you have actively mentored peers or juniors outside of your direct project scope; Professional exposure to Java/Spring frameworks; Full-stack versatility, with the ability to spin up internal tools using React and Next.js.

Our unwavering commitment to fair employment extends to all individuals, regardless of their race, color, ancestry, religion, sex, national origin, age, sexual orientation, disability, citizenship, marital status, gender identity, or Veteran status.