Senior / Staff Backend Engineer (API) – Economy

VRChat

🌏 Worldwide

Remote

Staff / Principal

6 months ago

Unity
Node.js
TypeScript
CI/CD
Docker
IaC
Incident Response
MySQL
MongoDB
Redis
PCI DSS
GDPR
AWS
Google Play

Equity
Pension

6 months ago

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Job Overview VRChat is known as one of the most vibrant social hangout immersive destinations — a place where people gather around shared interests, build communities, host events, and create entirely new worlds and experiences together. With over 250,000 user-created worlds and growing, the platform powers concerts, meetups, performances, niche communities, and creator-run businesses across VR, desktop, and mobile. People connect across time zones and cultures, and entire communities organize their social lives inside VRChat.It’s a live, global creator ecosystem with meaningful scale and long-term momentum. We have built a team of experienced engineers and product leaders from companies such as Netflix, Meta, Microsoft, Roblox, Google, Amazon, Unity, Spotify, Discord, Twitch, and others. Backed by $100M from Makers Fund, Anthos Capital, and HTC, we’re investing in durable platform infrastructure — including the economic systems that support creators and end-users worldwide. About the Economy Team The Economy team designs and operates the systems that power creator monetization and platform-wide transactions. Our work ensures creators can reliably earn income while the platform remains stable, sustainable, and built for long-term growth. Our team operates with high velocity and high impact—without sacrificing work-life integration. We value technical excellence, mutual respect, and solving hard problems together. What We're Looking For We’re looking for aSenior / Staff Backend Engineer (API) – Economy to join our Economy team. You will play a foundational role in architecting and evolving the systems that power how creators earn and how users transact across VRChat globally. This role focuses on building high-integrity backend infrastructure that supports subscriptions, digital ownership, creator monetization, payment processing, and economic analytics at global scale. You’ll work primarily with Node.js and TypeScript, designing systems where correctness, auditability, reliability, and compliance are non-negotiable. If you’re excited about building financial-grade systems for a thriving global creator ecosystem, this role could be the perfect fit.

We build and scale:

VRC+ subscription infrastructure
Central and avatar marketplaces
First-party and creator-driven digital content systems
Digital credits, wallets, inventory, ownership, and subscription models
Creator payouts and reconciliation
Monetization events and purchase flows
Economic analytics and reporting
Internal and external tooling supporting creators and platform teams

What You'll Do:

Design and implement scalable backend services in Node.js and TypeScript
Ensure transactional integrity in high-volume economic systems
Model digital ownership, entitlements, wallets, and payouts
Build and evolve systems supporting both first-party and creator-driven content
Drive refactors that improve maintainability and long-term platform evolution
Participate in architectural discussions shaping the future of VRChat’s economy stack
Design reliable economic event representations
Ensure traceability across payment transactions and reporting systems
Enable subscription and marketplace analytics
Support experimentation and feature iteration
Maintain reconciliation accuracy and reporting integrity
Contribute to fraud detection and prevention systems
Own services from development through deployment and monitoring
Improve CI/CD reliability and release safety
Work within containerized environments (Docker)
Contribute to Infrastructure as Code (IaC)
Strengthen observability, monitoring, and incident response practices
Occasionally jump in to resolve critical production issues

Senior-Level Expectations

Design and implement scalable backend services
Own systems end-to-end through production
Improve performance, observability, and operational resilience
Partner cross-functionally with Product, Design, Data, Finance, Trust & Safety, Infrastructure, and peer engineering teams
Lead architectural initiatives across the economy stack
Shape long-term technical direction
Identify systemic risks and drive preventative improvements
Mentor engineers and elevate engineering standards
Influence and inform cross-team design decisions

Staff-Level Expectations (In Addition)

Bring credible experience designing and operating financial or high-integrity transactional systems at scale
Architect cross-team economic platform primitives (e.g., entitlement models, payment flows, reconciliation frameworks, event contracts)
Define long-term technical strategy for the economy stack, balancing scalability, compliance, and product velocity
Lead strategic architecture initiatives spanning multiple services or teams, and high stake external partners and integrations
Mentor senior engineers and influence technical direction across the organization
Influence cross-team design decisions at platform scale

Qualifications

5+ years of experience in backend engineering for SaaS, fintech, marketplaces, or online platforms
Deep proficiency in Node.js and TypeScript
Strong experience with relational and non-relational databases (MySQL, MongoDB, Redis)
Experience managing message queues, caching strategies, and WebSocket systems
Proven experience building and maintaining external integrations (payment vendors, fintech platforms)
Strong understanding of profiling, optimization tradeoffs, and observability
Experience operating under PCI DSS, GDPR, and PII requirements
Experience building subscription engines, marketplaces, accounting systems, or invoicing workflows
Familiarity with AWS, Docker, CI/CD pipelines, and Infrastructure as Code
Comfortable navigating ambiguity across experimental and high-certainty requirements
Experience working in complex, evolving codebases

Bonus Points

Experience with event-driven or high-throughput transactional systems
Experience integrating with Steam, Oculus, Apple, or Google Play payment systems
Experience leading large-scale refactors or architectural migrations
Experience building internal operational tooling or creator-facing systems
Full-stack development experience
Active participation in creator economies or VRChat itself

Team Fit & Mindset

Independent and proactive self-starter
Low ego, high ownership, and collaborative
Growth-oriented and adaptable
Empathetic toward creators and end users
Calm and clear-headed during high-traffic events or critical incidents

Benefits

Work from anywhere — VRChat is a 100% remote company
Flexible working hours with core collaboration overlap
Health benefits
401(k) for US employees & Group RRSP for Canadian employees
Stock options
Generous paid holiday schedule
Unlimited/flexible vacation time
Paid parental leave

VRChat is an equal opportunity employer. We foster a diverse, creative, and collaborative environment where anyone can contribute meaningfully to our roadmap and mission. If you’re a passionate engineer excited about building the economic foundation of the metaverse, we’d love to hear from you. All job offers are subject to satisfactory referencing and background checks

Senior / Staff Backend Engineer (API) – Economy · VRChat

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