Senior Software Engineer; Backend - Words Friends Austin, TX; Bay Area, CA

Position: Senior Software Engineer (Backend) - Words With Friends Austin, TX; Bay Area, CA
Senior Software Engineer (Backend) - Words With Friends
Austin, TX;
Bay Area, CA;
Toronto, Canada

Level Up Your Career with Zynga!

At Zynga, we bring people together through the power of play. As a global leader in interactive entertainment and a proud label of Take‑Two Interactive, our games have been downloaded over 6 billion times—connecting players in 175+ countries through fun, strategy, and a little friendly competition.

Founded in 2007 and headquartered in California, our teams span North America, Europe, and Asia, working together to craft unforgettable gaming experiences. Whether you’re spinning, strategizing, matching, or competing, Zynga is where fun meets innovation—and where you can take your career to the next level.

Join us and be part of the play!

Position Overview:

Zynga is seeking a Backend Engineer in the Austin, San Mateo, or Toronto areas, with a specific focus on candidates who have a level of experience equivalent to that of a Senior Software Engineer.

We have a well‑rounded and tight‑knit team, distributed across various locations, with a healthy mix of engineering skill levels, and we are looking to strengthen our team. We are seeking a self‑driven and motivated engineer who is a strong communicator, works well as a team player, and performs effectively under pressure from tight deadlines. The candidate will have the opportunity to work on user‑facing features (including UI/UX), core gameplay functionality, various systems, and generally solve challenging problems for high‑profile mobile games.

On the backend, our servers and APIs support the mobile games that tens of millions of users enjoy every day. We support some of the world’s largest mobile games on some of the world’s largest infrastructures. Our servers and APIs help the mobile games that tens of millions of users enjoy every day, including Words With Friends. As a Backend Engineer, you’ll develop and architect critical game components and systems that directly relate to the success of our games.

Our mission is to “Connect the World through Games” by building a truly social experience that makes the world a better place. To be successful in this role, you will have a passion for games, a high level of integrity, great technical depth and skills, and a strong desire to build successful software.

What You’ll Do:

Define, architect, develop & maintain features and gameplay functionality in RoR, C# on the backend

Support live‑ops and deployments on a rotational basis

Develop robust and scalable APIs and server‑side logic using languages such as C# or Ruby on Rails.

Design and implement database schemas and manage data storage solutions (e.g., MySQL, Postgre

SQL).

Deploy and maintain applications on cloud platforms (e.g., AWS, Azure, Google Cloud).

Write unit and integration tests to ensure code quality and perform thorough debugging.

Participate in code reviews to ensure code quality and share knowledge with other team members.

Proactively optimize code & memory for high‑performance simulations with tight constraints.

Develop & integrate new technologies and tools (working with content teams).

Work closely with product managers, designers, and other engineers to understand requirements and deliver solutions.

Create and maintain clear and concise technical documentation.

Identify and address performance bottlenecks in both front‑end and back‑end systems.

Mentor junior engineers and guide best practices and technical solutions.

Participate in technical design discussions and contribute to architectural decisions.

Identify opportunities to improve the team’s development processes and workflows.

What You Bring:

Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science or a related field.

5+ years of experience in Backend development, with expertise in at least one of the server‑side languages such as  Ruby on Rails, C#.NET, Node.js, Python, or Java

Solid foundation in data structures, algorithms, and object‑oriented software design

Experience with database systems (e.g., Postgre

SQL, MySQL).

Experience with cloud platforms (e.g., AWS, Azure, Google Cloud).

Expertise in caching frameworks (e.g., Redis, Memcached)

Strong understanding of data structures, algorithms, and…