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Senior Software Engineer/ Software Developer (Backend)

Canada, Waterloo, ON

Why Sony Interactive Entertainment?

Sony Interactive Entertainment isn’t just the Best Place to Play — it’s also the Best Place to Work. Sony Interactive Entertainment (SIE) is the company behind the PlayStation brand. As a subsidiary of Sony Group Corporation, we’re part of a proud legacy of innovation and excellence. SIE is a dynamic technology company, delivering cutting-edge hardware and network services to more than 100 million people and an entertainment leader, home to some of the most beloved and recognizable intellectual properties (IP) in the world. Our role at SIE is to create and nurture the experiences under the PlayStation brand, a name synonymous with entertainment excellence and creativity.

Senior Software Engineer, Backend

Waterloo, ON

 

Build what’s next for players.

We’re a startup inside Sony PlayStation: fast-moving, experimental, and highly ambitious, while backed by the scale, resources, and trust of Sony Interactive Entertainment.

We’re building new mobile and web experiences that help gamers connect, discover, and play together in better ways. This is a rare opportunity to build at startup speed and deliver significant impact inside one of the largest gaming companies in the world.

We are seeking a Senior Backend Software Engineer to help define the architecture, services, data models, and technical standards that power our new consumer experiences.

 

Responsibilities

  • Define and evolve the backend architecture for highly available, scalable consumer applications across mobile and web.
  • Design, build, test, deploy, and operate reliable backend services and APIs.
  • Design data models and storage strategies across relational, non-relational, caching, and event-driven systems.
  • Make thoughtful architectural decisions related to scalability, consistency, availability, latency, security, and cost.
  • Drive performance optimization, service reliability, observability, monitoring, and incident response best practices.
  • Establish coding standards, testing strategies, deployment patterns, and development practices that raise the quality bar for backend engineering.
  • Partner with product managers, designers, and client engineers to translate product requirements into maintainable technical solutions.
  • Mentor engineers and act as a multiplier for backend development expertise across the broader team. 
  • Collaborate with security, privacy, and platform teams to ensure systems meet appropriate data protection and compliance requirements.
     

 Requirements

  • 5+ years of professional software development experience building and operating backend services in production.
  • BS/MS degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, or equivalent practical experience.
  • Proficiency in server-side development (Node.js with TypeScript preferred).
  • Experience with relational and non-relational databases, including data modelling, indexing, transactions, and performance optimization (PostgreSQL preferred).
  • Demonstrated ability to design and build GraphQL and REST APIs.
  • Familiarity with caching, message queues, event streams, and asynchronous processing systems.
  • Solid understanding of cloud infrastructure, containerized services, CI/CD pipelines, and infrastructure as code (IaC).
  • Hands-on experience building and operating production systems on AWS, including compute, storage, networking, databases, and IAM.

Bonus

  • A track record of building social, community, gaming, or other consumer products.
  • Understanding of real-time communication systems, including messaging, presence, notifications, and activity feeds.
  • Experience designing social graphs, recommendation systems, content discovery services, or personalization platforms.
  • Experience with trust and safety, content moderation, abuse prevention, or user reporting systems.
  • Previous experience at an early-stage startup or on a zero-to-one product team.

 

At SIE, we consider several factors when setting each role’s base pay range, including the competitive benchmarking data for the market and geographic location.

Please note that the base pay range may vary in line with our hybrid working policy and individual base pay will be determined based on job-related factors which may include knowledge, skills, experience, and location. 

 

The estimated Ontario base pay range for this role is listed below.

$141,900 - $212,900 CAD

Please note, Sony Interactive Entertainment conducts background checks at the offer stage for all new employees (which may include criminal background checks for some roles) and will need to process personal information to support these checks.

Please refer to our Candidate Privacy Notice for more information about what personal information we collect, how we use it, who we share it with, and your data protection rights.

Equal Opportunity Statement:

Sony is an Equal Opportunity Employer. All persons will receive consideration for employment without regard to gender (including gender identity, gender expression and gender reassignment), race (including colour, nationality, ethnic or national origin), religion or belief, marital or civil partnership status, disability, age, sexual orientation, pregnancy, maternity or parental status, trade union membership or membership in any other legally protected category.

We strive to create an inclusive environment, empower employees and embrace diversity. We encourage everyone to respond. 

Sony Interactive Entertainment is a Fair Chance employer and qualified applicants with arrest and conviction records will be considered for employment.

 

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US Voluntary Demographic Question

 

Voluntary Self-Identification

Our vision at PlayStation is to bring out the best in our global team members by creating a sense of belonging, being a place where they can grow, and ensuring everyone feels valued, heard, and supported so we can push the boundaries of play. That vision begins our candidates, and we are working to better understand the diversity of our candidate population.  
 
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  • Disabled Veteran: a veteran of the U.S. military who is entitled to compensation (or who would be entitled to compensation if not for the receipt of military retired pay) under the administration of the Secretary of Veterans Affairs and/or a person who was discharged or released from active duty because of a service-connected disability. 
  • Recently Separated Veteran: a veteran who has discharged or released from active duty in the U.S. military within the last three years.
  • Armed Forces Service Medal Veteran: a veteran who, while serving on active duty in the U.S. military, participated in a U.S. military operation for which an Armed Forces Service Medal was awarded pursuant to Executive Order 12985.

 

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Identifying yourself as an individual with a disability is voluntary, and we hope that you will choose to do so. Your answer will be maintained confidentially and will not be seen by selecting officials or anyone else involved in making personnel decisions, nor will it be shared with our accommodations team . Completing the form will not negatively impact you in any way, regardless of whether you have self-identified in the past.

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