Senior Software Engineer, Core Technology

Role summary

Volley is looking for engineers to help us build the future of fun, casual, voice-powered games. In this role, you will be responsible for shipping features that improve the end-user experience while ensuring high software quality and collaborating with product, design, and other stakeholders. You will also help the technical growth of engineers on your team while promoting work-life balance.

We have big plans to expand our range of games and the number of platforms we support. We're a small and diverse team that delivers outsized impact through smart technical investment. We are looking for someone who is curious, empathetic, excited to learn, and a creative problem-solver.

We have multiple positions open for Senior Software Engineers on teams responsible for Shared Services (things like Auth, social graph features, and speech recognition), the backend team for the Faceoff mobile game (responsible for game logic and user management), and Core Tech (the infrastructure that underpins all of our games). This role is for our Core Tech team supporting a wide variety of products that will be deployed to a wide variety of devices including, smart speakers, smart TVs and smartphones. 

This job opportunity offers a hybrid work arrangement. We are specifically seeking candidates who are comfortable with on-site attendance in our Bay Area office three times per week and are either currently residing in or near the Bay Area or willing to relocate for on-site work.

What you'll do at Volley

• Work on products that reach users on multiple platforms (Roku, Fire TV, Alexa, and mobile) and across several games
• Coordinate the work across multiple teams to ensure that solutions meet needs of our products and business
• Help develop best-in-class voice-controlled products that are social, engaging, and fun to play
• Architect and deliver solutions for our products that are reliable, pragmatic, and scalable.
• Collaborate with UX experts, designers, and data analysts to deliver products quickly and effectively

Stuff you may have done before

• Helped build consumer-facing apps or games at scale
• Built new infrastructure or services used by others
• Operated in environments with fast development cycles focused on rapid product iteration
• Worked with audio, voice, or other emerging technologies

Must-haves

• 6+ years of professional coding experience
• Have designed apis, services, and platforms in a robust manner at scale
• Ability to make pragmatic decisions based on business needs
• A passion for code quality, design patterns, and architecture
• Experience with modern NodeJS and Typescript or other strongly typed languages
• Passion for entertainment and games

Our stack

• React, Node, Express, Typescript: app/API development
• Redis, DynamoDB, PostgreSQL, AWS Aurora: database and caching
• Docker/Kubernetes: containerized shipping and deployment
• Retool: front-end CMS for API we use to manage our content

Your first 90 days

• Onboard into Volley's backend and deployment infrastructure
• Take the lead on product roadmap discussions with your product manager
• Familiarize yourself with the project architecture and lay out a technical roadmap
• Deploy lots of new experiments, features, and fixes into production
• Work directly with the product to improve conversion, retention, and monetization for our games

The hiring process

• Stage 1 (Preliminary Video Call) with a member of our recruitment team
• Stage 2 (Behavioral Screen Video Call) with one of our engineering managers
• Stage 3 (Technical Screen Video Call) with one of our engineers
• Stage 4 (Full-day Virtual “On-Site”) with various partners and team members
• Stage 5 (Founder Chat) with our Founders
• Stage 6 (Offer)

What's in it for you

• Your medical, dental, and vision insurance is 100% covered by Volley, for yourself and all dependents and we match 401k!
• We offer a flexible, hybrid work-from-home and in-office work model.
• We offer 4 weeks of paid time off (enforced 2-week minimum), 16 paid holidays, 40 hours of bereavement leave, and unlimited sick days.
• Our generous parental leave policy includes 24 weeks at 100% pay for birthing parents and 12 weeks at 100% pay for non-birthing parents.
• We offer visa support for eligible candidates, making relocating for the job smoother and more streamlined.
• A full breakdown of our benefits is here!

For Pay Transparency: The base salary range for this position is $165,000-$210,000 annually, based on a local (San Francisco) hire. The final offer amount may depend on experience, education, skills, and location. Base pay is one part of the total package that is provided to compensate and recognize employees for their work.

About Us

Volley is the leading developer of AI-powered games for Amazon Alexa, Roku TVs, and mobile devices. Our games attract millions of users every month. Popular Volley games include Song Quiz, Jeopardy!, and The Price Is Right.

We believe voice interfaces will become the main way people access entertainment in their living rooms, kitchens, bedrooms, and cars. We're building a bundled subscription product similar to Netflix or Spotify for the emerging category of “AI-powered games.”

Volley was founded by Max Child and James Wilsterman in 2016. We're headquartered in the Hayes Valley neighborhood of San Francisco. We're a quickly growing team that truly enjoys working together. If you think you would enjoy creating joyful games on top of a rapidly evolving AI technology stack, please get in touch!

Volley believes in an inclusive workplace and is committed to building a team from a variety of backgrounds. We will ensure that individuals with disabilities are provided reasonable accommodation to participate in the job application or interview process, perform essential job functions, and receive the other benefits and privileges of employment.

Underrepresented candidates and candidates from nontraditional backgrounds are strongly encouraged to apply!