Come join Bethesda Game Studios, the award-winning development team behind Starfield, The Elder Scrolls and Fallout. Bethesda Game Studios strives to offer its employees a well-balanced home and work life by providing competitive salaries, a generous benefits program, and offices located in some of North America’s best cities.

With a goal of creating a culture as fun and diverse as our games and our players, we welcome applicants with unique skillsets, experience levels and backgrounds. If you are passionate about making a meaningful contribution to some of the most significant games in the industry we’d love to hear from you!

We will consider candidates for any of our four Bethesda Game Studios office locations: Rockville, MD; Montreal, Quebec; Austin, TX; Dallas, TX.

Responsibilities

Your Daily Life at Bethesda Game Studios

Bethesda Game Studios is seeking a Senior Backend Programmer who can design, implement, and maintain backend services in the cloud as well as build the game side APIs to talk to them. This role involves analyzing requirements, developing architecture plans, and managing cloud microservice applications to ensure optimal performance and security.

In your role as Senior Backend Programmer, you will…

Help architect, build, and maintain cloud-based microservice systems primarily in Golang and C++ to support Bethesda Game Studios games. This will include both services for the games and services to support development of the games.
Code review and mentor more junior team members
Plan, organize, and control multiple responsibilities to achieve project objectives.
Work with teams to bring continuous improvement to processes and tools.
Lead and participate in team or customer meetings as necessary.

Qualifications

What Makes You S.P.E.C.I.A.L.

You have previous experience building and architecting microservice based distributed applications for deployment to a cloud environment
You have a B.S. (or higher) in Computer Science, or equivalent work experience.
You have 10+ years experience in object-oriented and asynchronous programming in multiple languages (you're a polyglot), preferably C++, Golang, Python, and C# (Java acceptable substitute for Golang or Python if you have C++)
You have 5+ years building microservices in the cloud using HTTP protocols, message brokers, caching, and databases systems to support a microservice based architecture
You have 5+ years architecting scalable database solutions to work with microservice architecture (Relational and/or NoSQL)
You have been responsible for coding and/or reviewing the code for most of the Skills (What Makes You Extra S.P.E.C.I.A.L.) listed below
You have significant experience working in a Linux based environment including basic system administration and performance management
You have familiarity with front end frameworks like React or similar
You have familiarity with Cloud Architecture in AWS and Azure, Containerization systems, and DevOps principles
Previous on call experience where you can identify root causes of issues and fix most issues independently

Preferred Skills

What Makes You Extra S.P.E.C.I.A.L.

Programming

Solid Computer Science fundamentals including design patterns, algorithms and algorithmic complexity, memory management, state/object management, compilation, execution, and asynchronous processing and how all these apply to the language you are working with
Solid understanding of object-oriented principles including application of composition vs inheritance as well as SOLID principles as it applies to the language you are working with
Expertise in async programming principles and networked applications
Strong C++ fundamentals
Solid Golang or Java
Proficiency with Python or C#

Microservice architectures

Proficiency in how to build multi-layered microservice architecture at enterprise scale
Proficiency in message broker and caching system and how to use them to further scale over a microservice architecture
Knowledge of where horizontal scale in cloud architecture fails
Knowledge of cost implications of different architectures

Cloud Platform Proficiency

Experience with major cloud platforms such as AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud
Familiarity with services and technologies available in Azure and AWS you can build upon
Ability to develop towards Azure using a multi-cloud framework while managing capacity issues and fallback to AWS
Ability to develop towards hybrid data center and cloud platforms
Expertise in strengths and weakness of solutions offered by each cloud provider

Database Proficiency

Database knowledge of basics for different database types (MySQL and variants and Mongo and variants) to the degree you can optimize and tune from the developer perspective
Knowledge of database schema and scaling methodologies to further optimization and scale
Proficiency in database query languages

Linux Proficiency

Ability to diagnose performance and connectivity Linux and Windows related issues

Security

Understanding of application side security best practices for multilayered micro-services environment

DevOps and Automation

Experience with Continuous Integration/Continuous Delivery (CI/CD) pipelines and tools like Jenkins, Git, Perforce, and Team City
Expertise in branch management

Open Source and Containerization

Experience with open-source frameworks, operating systems, and containerization technologies like Docker, ECS, AKS, and Kubernetes

Testing

Expertise in application and API testing methodologies and best practices
Expertise in automated testing

Bonus Skills

You have an educational background in Mathematics and/or Statistics
You have Cloud or Security certifications
You have C++ development experience in systems or gameplay

Salary Range

Senior Backend Programmer - The typical base pay range for this position at the start of employment is expected to be between $105,000 - $225,000 per year.

ZeniMax has different base pay ranges for different work locations within the United States, which allows us to pay employees competitively and consistently in different geographic markets. The range above reflects the potential base pay across the U.S. for this role; the applicable base pay range will depend on what ultimately is determined to be the candidate’s primary work location. Individual base pay depends on various factors, in addition to primary work location, such as complexity and responsibility of role, job duties/requirements, and relevant experience and skills. Base pay ranges are reviewed and typically updated each year. Offers are made within the base pay range applicable at the time.

At ZeniMax certain roles are eligible for additional rewards, such as merit increases and discretionary bonuses. These awards are allocated based on individual performance and are not guaranteed. Benefits/perks listed here may vary depending on the nature of employment with ZeniMax and the country work location. U.S.-based employees have access to healthcare benefits, a 401(k) plan and company match, short-term and long-term disability coverage, basic life insurance, wellbeing benefits, paid vacation time, paid sick and mental health time, and several paid holidays, among others.

This position is in a union and represented by the Communication Workers of America.

We embrace diversity, equity, and inclusion in everything we do – from recruiting for our studios, publishing and operations to fostering safe and respectful workplaces that encourage collaboration. Our culture is based on principles of respect, inclusion, and fair treatment and we welcome anyone into our family without regard to race, religion, gender identity, sexual orientation, or age.

Our diversity fuels our innovation and inspires us to create game worlds that bring us closer to the global community of players we serve.