Principal Backend Software Engineer

About the role

We are looking for a Principal Backend Engineer to shape the architecture and technical direction of our platform, designing systems that handle millions of transactions and ensuring scalability, performance and reliability as the business grows.

Key responsibilities

• Architect, design, implement and evolve distributed systems with high throughput and millions of concurrent transactions.
• Provide technical leadership and mentorship across backend and infrastructure topics.
• Optimize performance by identifying bottlenecks and delivering scalable, cost‑efficient solutions.
• Drive reliability through monitoring, alerting, incident management and observability standards.
• Collaborate with product and business leaders to translate ideas into technical strategies.
• Continuously improve existing solutions and align with modern distributed systems and DevOps practices.
• Participate in on‑call rotations, focusing on root‑cause prevention.

Required profile

• 10+ years of engineering leadership delivering large‑scale distributed systems.
• Experience with cloud architectures (AWS, Azure, Google Cloud) and DevOps (CI/CD, micro‑services, Kubernetes).
• Proven ability to address production incidents quickly and implement preventive measures.
• Strong communication skills to influence stakeholders and work across teams.
• iGaming experience is a plus but not required.

Required skills

• C# and .NET (Core.NET 8)
• Kafka, RabbitMQ, Azure Service Bus
• SQL Server, MongoDB, CosmosDB, Redis
• Docker, Kubernetes (AKS)
• Azure Cloud (or other cloud platforms)
• Grafana, Kibana, Application Insights

What we offer

• Hybrid work model: 2 days in office, 3 days remote, flexible hours.
• Private health insurance and €350 annual wellbeing allowance.
• Up to 10 business days per year of remote work from anywhere.
• Annual leave per Maltese law plus an extra birthday day off.
• Reserved parking at Malta office.
• High‑performance laptop and weekly in‑office meals, snacks and coffee.
• Global collaboration with teams in Malta, Nigeria, South Africa, Spain and the UK.
• Discretionary annual performance bonus (subject to onboarding cycle).