Senior Software Engineer - Backend AI

Who We Are

Second Dinner is an award-winning independent game development studio that is here to make the most fun games in the world. Not super fun games. Not SUPER DUPER fun games. We mean the MOST fun games. In fact, our game MARVEL SNAP has earned multiple Mobile Game of the Year Awards (Game Awards, DICE), Best Strategy Game (IGN), and the Apple Design Award for Innovation!

Second Dinner is a remote-first studio, so while we are headquartered in Irvine, California, most of our team is fully remote across the United States. We want the most talented teammates wherever they call home. A diverse team with varied perspectives makes us a better company and will help us make better games. If you can bring something new to the table and expand our point of view, that's a huge upside.

Our Engineering team:

At Second Dinner, we believe that great people in a great work environment will lead us to great games and player experiences. In engineering, we empower our team to build and innovate with best in class tools in ways they haven't been used before. Our goal is to leverage the most powerful AI technologies available and be on the cutting edge of the gaming industry; to that end, we have an entire team dedicated to developing new AI-powered tools.

Your Role:

You will be a vital member of the backend engineering team, partnered with server engineers and site reliability engineers, but with a focus developing new tools and features in coordination with the Marvel SNAP AI team. You will get to integrate cutting edge AI technologies that help us develop features faster, and that can make our game even more fun and engaging for our HUGE global player base. If you love programming robots and collaborating with extraordinarily talented cross-functional teams, then APPLY!

What You’ll Do:

• Design and lead the integration of AI services into a cloud native server stack

• Implement AI powered tools and frameworks for cross discipline development teams

• Design, implement, and take ownership of a performant set of secure backend services

• Be part of the on-call rotation to ensure server up time

• Enable rapid feature development without cutting quality

• Create and maintain documentation for live ops, debugging, and general knowledge

What You’ll Need:

• Strong experience operating multi-region services in AWS or other cloud providers

• Familiarity deploying cloud native applications using Infrastructure as Code tools

• Extensive experience building applications in .NET/C# or similar languages

• Experience configuring observability tools and troubleshooting live service issues

• Hands-on experience with cloud data storage, such as AWS S3, or DynamoDB

• Ability to identify security vulnerabilities

• Awesome technical and personal communication skills

• Highly responsive attitude, collaborative and supportive of team members

Nice to Have, but Not Necessary:

• Experience with machine learning services

• Experience with serverless applications on AWS

• Experience with globally scalable distributed systems

• Experience with data processing and analytics tools

• Experience with Git

• Game development experience

The total compensation for this position includes a new hire offer base salary range of $140,000 - $200,000 USD + equity + comprehensive benefits + potential for discretionary performance bonuses.

Individual pay within this salary range may span multiple levels within the discipline and is determined by assessed job-related skills, experience, relevant education or training. It also factors in market demands and business needs. The disclosed range is not adjusted based on location and may be subject to change or modification based on business needs in the future. Your recruiter can answer any questions about new hire total compensation during the hiring process.

An overview of the benefits and perks at Second Dinner:

• Medical, Dental, and Vision insurance plans with Second Dinner paying 100% of premiums for employees and 75% for dependents for many plans

• 401(k) contribution with no waiting period

• 16 weeks paid parental leave with no waiting period

• Home office improvement bonus

• Paid Vacation & Sick time

• Up to 10 BetterHelp sessions covered each benefits plan year

• Remote-first with core overlap hours between 10AM and 4PM PT

• Company Winter Holiday shutdown (Dec 25-Jan 1)

• Company Summer Holiday shutdown (week of July 4)

• Company Events - In-person Summer all-hands gathering, in-person holiday party, annual camping event, and virtual events throughout the year

We are an equal opportunity employer that places high value on diversity and inclusion. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, color, ancestry, national origin, religion, age, disability status, sex (including pregnancy), gender, gender identity, gender expression, sexual orientation, medical condition, genetic information, marital status, military status, or veteran status.

You must be eligible to work in the United States to be considered for this position.