Principal Back-End Software Engineer
Light & Wonder is looking for a Principal Back-End Software Engineer who is genuinely hands-on. This role requires an individual who writes production code, participates in design sessions alongside architecture teams, and simultaneously guides a small group of talented developers toward consistent, high-quality delivery.
This is not a purely managerial role, as the successful candidate will be expected to be in the code, lead by example, and bring practical engineering judgment to every discussion. The role operates at the intersection of individual contribution and technical leadership, partnering closely with architects to shape system-level decisions while remaining the most knowledgeable voice regarding the day-to-day codebase.
- Write, review, and own production-quality code as a day-to-day activity.
- Drive code quality through TDD, clean architecture principles, and rigorous code reviews.
- Set and enforce engineering standards across the team including CI/CD pipelines, branching strategies, and release practices.
- Engage actively with solution and enterprise architects to shape backend architecture, API design, event-driven patterns, and cloud-native deployment strategies.
- Translate high-level architectural decisions into actionable technical designs.
- Produce clear solution design documents, API specifications (OpenAPI/REST), and integration workflow diagrams.
- Champion microservices, event-driven, and clean/hexagonal architecture patterns.
- Be familiar with SQL and noSQL Databases (Postgres and MongoDB) and have in-depth experience with high-volume transaction applications.
- Lead, mentor, and develop a small team of engineers.
- Run Agile ceremonies: sprint planning, retrospectives, and backlog grooming.
- Act as the primary technical escalation point within the team, unblocking engineers and resolving ambiguity quickly.
- Manage deliverables and coordinate with cross-functional teams including QA, infrastructure, security, and operations.
- Build and maintain observability tooling - dashboards, alerting, and runbooks - to ensure production health and fast incident response.
- Lead incident response, root cause analysis, and preventive improvements.
- Champion DevOps practices: infrastructure as code, automated deployments, and shift-left testing.
- 10+ years of software engineering experience with demonstrable hands-on coding in recent roles (required)
- Proven track record leading small engineering teams (2–8 people) end-to-end from design to production (required)
- Strong backend engineering background: Java / Spring Boot, with modern cloud-native patterns (required)
- Practical experience with event-driven architectures and messaging systems (Apache Kafka, SQS/SNS, RabbitMQ) (required)
- Cloud platform expertise: AWS (ECS/EKS, Postgres RDS, ElastiCache, network configuration) (required)
- API design and security: REST, OpenAPI/Swagger, OAuth 2.0, JWT (required)
- Containerization and orchestration: Docker, Kubernetes (required)
- CI/CD pipelines: Jenkins, GitHub Actions (required)
- Observability tooling: Splunk, Grafana or equivalent (required)
- Strong communication skills; ability to produce design documents and engage non-technical stakeholders confidently (required)
- Experience in regulated or compliance-sensitive industries (iGaming, fintech, media, or similar) is advantageous (nice-to-have)
- Hands-on experience with WSO2 API Manager or similar API gateway / IAM platforms (nice-to-have)
- Familiarity with PAM (Player Account Management) or iGaming platform concepts (nice-to-have)
- Infrastructure-as-code with Terraform and Helm (nice-to-have)
- AWS Certified Solutions Architect, Azure certifications, or Confluent Kafka certification (nice-to-have)
- Competitive benefits
- Open and supportive environment
- Modern and exciting workplace
- Opportunity to interact with global teams on a regular basis
- Possibility to switch teams and projects
- Exciting projects with opportunities for creating positive change to our game engineering ecosystem
- Stunning work location
- Flexible working
- Guidance and development skills you need to progress quickly and enhance your career
Light & Wonder, Inc. is a leading cross-platform gaming company headquartered in Las Vegas, Nevada. Formerly known as Scientific Games, it rebranded in 2022 after divesting its lottery and sports-betting businesses to focus on gaming. The company operates across three segments - Gaming (slot machines, table games and casino systems under brands such as Bally, WMS and Shuffle Master), SciPlay (social casino games) and iGaming (online casino content). Listed in both the US and Australia, it supplies content and systems to casinos and online operators worldwide.