With over 230 million registered users, Bigpoint.com is the world's largest browser game portal and one of the top three international gaming portals. The more than 800 employees at Bigpoint's Hamburg headquarters and their colleagues at subsidiaries in Berlin, San Francisco, Sao Paulo and Malta work together to provide content to large media concerns and develop and publish browser-based games. Bigpoint Inc. cooperates with high-profile companies like NBC, SyFy, Tangent, etc. to distribute top games such as the pirate adventure Seafight and the space odyssey DarkOrbit. Bigpoint's many international awards are proof of their commitment to excellence and their dedication to providing their customers with the best quality available.

Lead/Senior PHP Programmer

Division: Development / Engineering Location: San Francisco Reference Number: US42003


The Senior PHP Programmer will leverage demonstrable skills architecting and implementing back-end and front-end solutions. The qualified candidate will be experienced with database design and implementation, integration with external account systems (SSO), payment systems, social networking, and in general most popular game related web services. The chosen candidate will collaborate with designers and producers to implement intuitive low-friction integrations for many of our currently live and exciting new up-coming browser games. This full-time programming position is available immediately at our San Francisco based studio.


Job responsibilities:

  • Lead and collaborate with others on extensive web projects.
  • Heavily involved in back-end database design and implementation.
  • Architect and implement integrations with all manner of backend services, both proprietary and 3rd party.
  • Collaborate with game teams to design and implement intuitive, friendly, low-friction web interfaces.
  • Implement server selection schemes, game setup and onboarding flow in coordination with game teams.
  • Apply creative thinking to develop robust and secure integrations between games and services.
  • Responsible for designing and creating deployment scripts and unit testing environments.
  • Optimize existing projects and develop new and innovative software for future projects.
  • Hold regular 1-on-1’s with less senior team members including code reviews as necessary.
  • Work closely with QA staff to resolve bugs.
  • Assist project managers in maintaining development focus, managing technical risks, regularly reporting on development progress, and ensuring our web service integrations are solid and function well every day.
  • Work within a scrum based development environment where test-driven development techniques are embraced.
Key Skills and Experience:
  • You are a skilled programmer whose creativity, knowledge and experience make them stand out from the crowd.
  • You have a solid understanding of Web and database technology and have several years experience programming both front-end and back-end systems. This includes experience with PHP, HTML, CSS, JavaScript and AJAX.
  • You have a good understanding of how object-oriented programming techniques and design patterns apply to PHP.
  • Experience with Web 2.0/AJAX based applications including parsing and rendering XML and JSON.
  • Experience with Web service/API integration (XML, SOAP, REST – client and server).
  • Experience with social media API Integration (Facebook, Twitter, etc.).
  • You have a solid track record of completed projects implemented with PHP and MySQL.
  • You have experience working with large databases (over 10 million records) and optimizing them for performance.
  • Strong relational database skills and ability to construct simple and complex SQL queries.
  • Experience with memcache and database optimization practices.
  • Experience implementing contemporary best practices with regards to security.
  • Strong understanding of LAMP Stack environments, including configuration and optimization.
  • You have proven experience working with Linux, server clusters and IP networks.
  • You have experience working with version control systems such as SVN, CVS or Perforce.
  • General understanding of Information architecture and usability best practices.
  • You are a focused problem-solver and a team player who’s happy to proactively work with programmer and non-programmer disciplines, and work independently when necessary.
Bonus skills:
  • zend framework experience
  • smarty templating engine experience
  • knowledge of pear coding standard / structure
  • phpunit knowledge is a plus
  • phpdoc knowledge also a plus
  • Experience with other scripting languages such as C#/.NET
Qualifications:
  • 4+ years professional experience in a similar role.
  • You have a Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science or equivalent training and experience.
  • You are fluent in both written and spoken English and possess excellent communication skills.
We offer:
  • A competitive salary and benefits such as 401(k) plan
  • A fresh, open and international atmosphere
  • Latitude for new ideas and initiatives

Our company is expanding exponentially, and our team of outstanding, engaged professionals is growing with it. If you feel that your talent and abilities would make a valuable contribution to our future, we'd love to hear from you! Please apply online and make sure to mention your salary expectations and quoting reference number US42003.

Apply Now!