Senior Networked Gameplay Programmer

Hello!

Innersloth is a small team scattered mostly in North America. We released Among Us in 2018 and its popularity and ongoing development updates means we need help with our growing backend team! We’re looking for someone to help us build and refine the real-time multiplayer systems behind Among Us and our future titles. Your hard work will affect millions of players around the world (and help our other Backend Programmers take a nap).

Your focus will be on networked gameplay: designing, implementing, testing, reviewing, and maintaining the neworked gameplay systems. You'll also contribute to our broader backend systems and infrastructure, including matchmaking, server-authoritative security and anti-cheat, and deployment pipelines.

You’ll report to our Backend Programming Director and take technical direction from our Backend Architect, working alongside the rest of the Backend team and our external development partners. We don’t want to overscope this, but because we are a small team, sometimes responsibilities overlap - a willingness to learn and help is essential. You will not be working alone, and our team prioritizes providing support and ensuring you are thriving in your role.

We especially encourage marginalized groups and people from underrepresented backgrounds, genders, and locations to apply. Diverse voices make Innersloth better, and we strive to continue creating a diverse and welcoming space from the ground up.

Please note this is not an entry-level position, but we'll consider strong candidates with general experience working in games, backend development, or distributed systems that accounts for the required skillset, even without 5+ years of "official" experience matching the expectations set below. Please absolutely include these things in your application!

What we're looking for: Proactivity, independence, and accountability are extremely important for this position. If you show an aptitude for working well with others, handling conflict, and understanding backend technology, we want to hear from you! AI-dependent workflows are not a fit for this position. Candidates should be able to demonstrate their work, reasoning, and problem-solving without AI assistance.

The following points outline the experience and skills that we strongly prefer. None of these are strict dealbreakers, but reflect the type of experience we feel would lead to finding the right candidate for this position.

Our expectations:

5+ years of experience and excellent knowledge of C#

Excellent knowledge of server-side programming

Experience with version control/asset management systems

Excellent written and oral communication skills and the ability to clearly articulate your ideas, and suggestions

The ability to give, process, and accept feedback

Can collaborate and work well in a team-based, dynamic, cross-functional setting

Highly organized and able to work independently

Strong attention to detail

Experience and comfort diving into an existing codebase

Experience with real-time multiplayer games, particularly server-authoritative models

Experience with real-time state synchronization, including physics state synchronization

Strong debugging and investigative skills

Experience creating maintainable, scalable systems and architectures

Experience with, or the ability and willingness to learn, technologies including RUDP (we use Hazel ), NATS Messaging, MongoDB, Orleans, Postgres, Redis, Kubernetes, Docker, Multiplay, Linode, and Ubuntu

Collaborative, respectful, and kind approach to working with others

Experience following and refining inter-department processes (task tracking, asset handoff, sprints, etc)

Nice to have:

Experience working in games, particularly live service games

Comfort with Go and/or Typescript

Experience with low level network programming

Experience with designing or implementing skill-based matchmaking algorithms

Familiarity with the Among Us IP

Education related to the role is an asset but not required

What you'll be doing:

Design, implement, and review networked gameplay systems using appropriate server-authoritative, host-authoritative or client-authoritative models

Design, implement, and review state synchronization, replication, prediction, interpolation, and reconciliation systems

Profile and optimize networked gameplay systems for reliability and performance

Implement general backend features to support multiplayer game titles

Contribute to backend infrastructure design, implementation, operations, and maintenance

Debug code issues and implement bug fixes

Develop and improve matchmaking systems

Contribute to server-authoritative security and anti-cheat systems

Deploy server-side applications

Write technical design proposals and help review other team members’ proposals

Help continuously improve our process through retrospectives and feedback

Work with external partners

Review code written by others

Test your own code and assist in testing team members’ work

Assist with deployment of applications and updates to various environments

Occasionally check monitoring dashboards and backend system alerts for problematic trends

Report to the Backend Programming Director while working closely with other members of the programming team, game designers, community personnel, artists, production members and other external partners

Incorporate technical direction from the Backend Architect and other technical stakeholders

Demonstrate ownership and autonomy while delivering project priorities on time

Communication requirements include:

Responsive and proactive usage of ClickUp and Microsoft Teams

Attend and contribute to scheduled meetings when required

Extra duties as assigned such as:

Backend Support Rotation - occasionally be the point person for other teams to contact for emergent backend issues

Occasionally assist in running regular meetings

Our offer

A Full-time job from the comfort of your home (as long as you are willing to work in our core 10am - 2pm PT hours, and being close-ish to us is a bonus).

We are comfortable working with local HR companies or creating subsidiaries over time to better support staff in other countries.

A competitive salary.

Benefits (or in-kind), appropriate for the role. Health, retirement, vacations, etc.

A guarantee that your job is safe and stable for a few years - regardless of what's happening around us, we have a very healthy financial runway.

A small collection of friendly, diverse workmates and partner companies.

FAQ

What's the level of experience necessary?

There’s no real hard requirement (5 years is suggested), but ideally we’d have someone who is experienced in networked gameplay and backend development, works effectively with people, and has a good head on their shoulders.

What’s the backend team like?

The backend team supports a wide range of "network programming" topics at Innersloth across multiplayer netcode, matchmaking, account services, notifications, DevOps, data storage, and telemetry. We manage the upkeep of the worldwide Among Us backend and help support future projects where needed. We have a highly collaborative team that likes to group discuss technical choices and help unblock each other.

You'll be managed by Daryl (Backend Programming Director) and work closely with the rest of the backend team, which consists of Mik, Brad, Nicole and Nick along with various external contractors.

Recruitment Process **Applications close at 6:00 PM PT on November 13th, 2026. **

You'll get an email from us to acknowledge receipt.

We’ll review applications and contact everyone to let you know if you made it to the next stage or not. Due to the sheer volume of responses we got last time, it's likely you won't hear from us until the end of November.

Stage 2 will be a video call with 2-3 people from the team to get co