Senior Software Engineer (Portugal & Remote)

At Arkadium our purpose is to have fun while creating fun - and that’s exactly what we’ve been doing for 20 years. We’re the creators behind the world’s most-played games. From the Solitaire that came on your Windows machine, to hundreds of other games you’ve come to know and love - you can find our games on Arkadium.com, iOS, Android, and lots of other big sites worldwide.

As a proud Evergreen business our values of Fierce Drive, Positive Energy and Living Full Lives are the driving force behind how we run and the choices we make.

We’re privately held (aka stable and reasonable about growth), founder-led (aka passionate about our craft) and we consistently rank as a “Best Place to Work” (aka not your typical games company).

We’ve been recognised by "Happiness Works 2023, 2024, 2025" in Portugal, "Crain's Best Places to Work 2022" and "Great Place to Work 2022 and 2023" in New York!

Interested in becoming an Arkadian? We’d love to hear from you!

Overview

Arkadium is seeking an exceptional and experienced Senior Full-Stack Engineer to join our Core Tech team.

Core Tech operates as a backend-first team, building and evolving the shared services that enable a lot of the core functionalities in Arkadium’s games and platforms - from authentication, chat, tournaments, friends, inventory, and microtransactions, to multiplayer infrastructure (Nakama) and platform-wide capabilities.

What You’ll Do

• Own the technical direction and delivery of complex, scalable full-stack systems used by live games.
• Design and make architectural decisions for backend and frontend systems, balancing performance, scalability, and long-term maintainability.
• Build and evolve backend services and APIs that power real-time, live-operated games.
• Integrate backend systems with web-based frontends and browser games.
• Act as a force multiplier for internal game teams by building shared services, frameworks, and developer tools.
• Design, implement, and maintain reliable data models, ensuring correctness, security, and performance at scale.
• Identify performance bottlenecks across the stack and proactively drive optimizations.
• Define and enforce security standards around authentication, authorization, and data protection.
• Set engineering quality standards through code reviews, architectural guidance, and hands-on mentorship.
• Produce clear technical documentation and decision records to enable long-term ownership and knowledge transfer.
• Stay current with modern backend, frontend, and infrastructure practices and actively raise the technical bar of the team.
• Collaborate closely in an agile environment, contributing to planning, execution, and continuous improvement.

Requirements

What We’re Looking For

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or equivalent practical experience.
• 5+ years of professional experience building backend or full-stack production systems.
• 5+ years of hands-on experience with server-side runtimes (e.g. Node.js).
• 3+ years working with modern JavaScript/TypeScript frameworks on both:
• Frontend (React, Angular, Vue, Svelte, etc.)
• Backend (Express.js, NestJS, Next.js, Remix, etc.)
• Proven experience writing production backend services in Go.
• Experience designing, building, and maintaining RESTful APIs at scale.
• Experience deploying and operating services on cloud platforms.
• Strong ownership mindset.
• Demonstrated ability to lead by example, mentor engineers, and influence technical direction.
• Strong analytical skills and the ability to debug complex, distributed systems.
• Clear written and verbal communication skills, especially around technical topics.

Nice to Have

• Experience with game backend platforms (Nakama, Firebase, PlayFab).
• Experience operating online games with thousands of concurrent users.
• Hands-on experience with relational and/or NoSQL databases (PostgreSQL, MySQL, etc.).
• Experience with containerization and orchestration (Docker, Kubernetes).
• Familiarity with Unity or other game engines.
• Solid understanding of microservices, distributed systems, and real-time architectures.

Benefits

We offer:

• Competitive compensation with structured performance and career development check-ins
• Health insurance
• Additional budget for conferences you are interested in
• Personal development budget to fuel your passions and desire to learn (Arkadians are taking classes in not only Excel and leadership, but also interior design and even swimming!)
• Time off from Christmas Eve through New Year's Day so we can all enjoy the holidays
• A unique culture of transparency, true teamwork and fun
• Summer Fridays: Fridays off throughout the Summer to have more fun in the sun!

The above benefits may vary depending on location or country.

This is a 1‑year contract position. Candidates outside of Portugal will be engaged via Arkadium’s international payroll provider.

Candidates must be available to work standard hours from 09:00 to 18:00 in the Western European Time (WET) zone -(Portugal time zone), where most of the Engineering and Product teams are based.

Work Location & Hybrid Model (Portugal)

In Portugal, we operate under a hybrid work model that blends remote and in-office work. Employees may work from home or from the office depending on team and individual needs, ensuring both flexibility and strong collaboration.

If you reside in the Lisbon metropolitan area: you will be expected to work onsite one to three times per week, with specific days agreed upon with your manager. If you are based outside of Lisbon: a different onsite cadence will apply.