Founding Backend Developer

Summary

We’re hiring an experienced backend developer to help us design and build scalable game servers that will back our mobile game, generative AI tools, and multiplayer gameplay experiences. As part of the founding team, you’ll be in at the ground floor to define the product, the culture, and overall backend architecture for the company.

Who we are

Storycraft is on a mission to bond people together and help them create lasting memories from their phones. We believe that games are the best way to do this.

We are working on a mobile game that gives players unprecedented creative freedom to build their own unique world with AI. They will travel to other worlds to connect with other players and have memorable encounters along the way. We are heavily inspired by creative building games like Minecraft, community sims like Animal Crossing, and narrative RPGs.

The co-founders Andy and Adam are serial AI and gaming entrepreneurs. For Storycraft they have partnered with and raised capital from some of the best regarded firms in both gaming (LVP - investors of Supercell, Unity, etc) and consumer products (SignalFire - investors in Grammarly, Clubhouse, etc). We are currently hiring the founding team and are looking for folks who are keen to innovate at the intersection of generative AI, and mobile social gaming.

Day-to-day you’ll be supported by a full-stack CTO, and actively collaborating with an AI Developer (responsible for the AI models and asset pipelines) and a Senior Game Developer (responsible for the UI and game client).

What you’ll be doing

• Design, test, and deploy the first version of our backend systems, including multiplayer game server design, game server logic, database design, and asset storage.
• Design APIs and domain models that reflect our unique game design's needs and support our frontend game developer with intuitive interfaces.
• Configure and oversee our cloud hosting environment (either Azure or GCP).
• Work with our AI developer to design cloud environments and tools for the deployment and hosting of our own AI inference pipelines and finetuned AI models.
• Own our approach to devops, consistent dev environments (ie. containerization), continuous integration, and deployment.
• Own the security, reliability, observability, and scalability of our backend systems.
• Support rapid prototype development while we iterate on the design all the way through to production for our first alpha product launch and beyond.

About you

Things you’ve done

• Advanced in your development career to a senior level position or beyond.
• Written tons of testable TypeScript or C# server code.
• Built, tested, and deployed low-latency game servers at scale.
• Delivered multiplayer game experiences at scale. You know how to write composable game logic on the backend in server-heavy architectures.
• Demonstrated you can hit the sweet spot of scalability, reliability, and observability while still respecting the fact that startups need to ship fast and avoid over-engineering.
• Built continuous deployment pipelines and made sure they stay fast and green.
• Configured cloud hosting solutions and tuned them to the needs of your team.
• Played a lot of games and formed strong opinions on what you like.
• You know how to work remotely, write well, and understand the unique demands of a remote culture in terms of communication and collaboration

Bonus points

• You have experience with ML Ops or deploying ML models in production.
• You’ve built or designed your own game from end to end. Even better: You’ve shipped one to paying customers!
• You have experience with Unity and familiarity with the ecosystem of off-the-shelf options or services for multiplayer game servers.

Why you should work with us

• You'll have a front-row seat at an early-stage startup with two experienced founders. If you hope to start your own thing someday, this would be great preparation.
• You will have a huge impact here. You’ll be shipping every week and helping us define the shape of our flagship product.
• If you have been looking for your chance to get into AI, this is it.
• We have weekly conversations about games, AI creativity, and how to bring people together in a world that's increasingly online.
• You crave innovation. Our company is exploring uncharted territory in gaming, AI, and social consumer experiences.
• You’ll report to founders who can help you grow in your career while empathizing with the challenges of your craft.

• Andy is a certified coach and an experienced AI founder with an exit under his belt.
• Adam has experience leading teams and building in Fullstack Web Development, Design, Product, and Marketing.

Why you would not want to work with us

• We are a new startup so we are still defining and iterating on processes. If you need a lot of structure and predefined tasks to thrive, you will not be comfortable here.
• We have 18-24 months of runway with our current pre-seed raise. We will have to raise more capital to achieve profitability. We are confident in our ability to do this if we hire great people and execute well together, but this may feel overly risky to you if you’ve never experienced this stage of a startup before.
• We meet up in person every quarter, but have no current plans to establish an office or a work-in-person culture. If you thrive in an office, this will not be the best place for you.

How to apply

Write a short introductory email and tell us about yourself. Attach your resume, and send it to both founders at adam@storycraft.gg and andy@storycraft.gg - we’ll reply to every application we receive.

Your email should include one paragraph on how your skillset will help us build excellent backend systems, and one paragraph on why you want to work with us.