Senior / Staff Backend Engineer (API) – Economy

Job Overview

We’re looking for a Senior / 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.

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.

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