Senior Backend Engineer (Golang, Agentic, AI) at Reforged Labs (W22)$1 - $1M •
The first AI performance marketing analyst for mobile game marketers
Ho Chi Minh City, Ho Chi Minh City, VN
US citizenship/visa not required
About Reforged Labs
Reforged Labs empowers game studios to supercharge their creative insights and analysis. Boa, our AI copilot, is the first platform built for mobile game marketing, enables creative teams to achieve results 5x faster and 10x cheaper.
By analyzing millions of top-performing ads and performance metrics, our platform uncovers what makes an ad effective. Backed by real-world data, it transforms how creative teams brainstorm ideas, create video ads, and launch high-performing campaigns - delivering a competitive edge in the evolving gaming industry.
With Reforged Labs, you don’t just keep up with trends - you set them.
We’re a small and nimble team with backgrounds from Google, Microsoft, and Harvard, and we’re backed by world-class investors, including DCM, Y Combinator, the founder of King and Sky Mavis, and executives from Niantic and Pocket Gems.
About the role
Skills: GoAbout Us
Reforged Labs is a YC-backed, Sandhill Road funded AI startup revolutionizing how the world's top mobile gaming studios market themselves to hundreds of millions of players. We're building cutting-edge AI technology that powers sophisticated ad analysis and generation pipelines for elite global gaming companies.
We don't follow trends; we set them. Our engineering team builds solutions that rival the best Silicon Valley has to offer, creating technology that generates millions of dollars in value for our customers.
The Role
We're seeking an exceptional Senior Backend Engineer to join our fast-growing team in Ho Chi Minh City. This is not a role for the average developer; we're looking exclusively for extraordinary talent who can compete with the best engineers globally.
You'll design and implement robust backend services that power our AI-driven platforms, working at the intersection of distributed systems, cloud infrastructure, and machine learning operations. Your code will directly impact how hundreds of millions of players discover and experience games.
Core Responsibilities
- Architect and build intelligent agent systems that can understand context, plan execution paths, select appropriate tools, and process data with exceptional accuracy
- Design scalable, high-performance systems for processing and analyzing large volumes of video ad performance data
- Implement sophisticated APIs that enable real-time ad performance analysis and automated content generation
- Create efficient data pipelines and workflows that integrate with advanced AI capabilities
- Drive technical decisions that will shape our platform's architecture and future direction
- Build Agentic Workflows that can consistently deliver value
- Ship production-ready features that provide demonstrable multi-million dollar value to our customers
Required Experience
- 5+ years of backend development experience building complex distributed systems
- Strong experience with Golang, with demonstrated mastery of concurrency patterns, performance optimization, and idiomatic code
- Proven track record building production services on AWS or GCP, leveraging their full ecosystem of tools
- Experience with design patterns for agentic workflows and prompt engineering
- Exceptional problem-solving skills with a history of solving complex technical challenges independently
- Experience building and maintaining high-throughput production REST APIs and microservices
- Having built Agentic Workflows in production-ready applications
- Deep understanding of software architecture patterns, distributed systems, and clean code principles
- Professional English communication skills—both verbal and written
Essential Qualities
- Self-leadership: You can drive technical initiatives from conception to completion with minimal guidance
- Intellectual curiosity: You stay ahead of technical trends and continuously expand your knowledge
- High standards: You're never satisfied with "good enough" and push for technical excellence
- Collaborative mindset: You thrive in environments where ideas are openly discussed and challenged
- Speed and execution focus: You balance perfectionism with pragmatism to ship high-quality code rapidly
- Passion for solving hard problems: You're energized rather than drained by technical challenges
Interview Process
- Initial Technical Screen (45-60 mins)
- Algorithm problem-solving exercise
- Technical background discussion
- High-level experience overview
- Take-Home Project (1 week to complete)
- Real-world problem related to our domain
- Opportunity to demonstrate your skills comprehensively
- Project Review & System Design (60-90 mins)
- Deep dive into your project implementation
- Architecture and scalability discussion
- Advanced system design challenge
- Final Leadership Conversation (60 mins)
- Vision alignment with founders
- Culture and team fit discussion
- Two-way Q&A about growth opportunities
We aim to complete the entire process within 2-3 weeks.
Note
- This role is designed for elite engineering talent. If you're not consistently recognized as among the most capable engineers in your current organization, this position is likely not a good fit. We're looking for candidates who can demonstrate outstanding technical abilities and deliver outsized impact.
- If you believe you're among the most skilled backend engineers and are excited about building cutting-edge AI systems, we want to talk to you.
Why You'll Love Working Here
- Industry-leading compensation package
- Work on technology that is genuinely world-class and cutting-edge, not just by local standards
- Build products that compete globally and set new industry standards
- Compensation package targeting top-tier engineers (significantly above local market rates)
- Opportunity to be an early engineer at a rapidly growing, well-funded AI startup
- Direct impact on products used by major gaming studios reaching hundreds of millions of users
- Potential for international recognition and career advancement opportunities
- Challenging, fast-paced environment that will accelerate your professional growth
- Collaborative culture where your ideas matter and technical excellence is valued
Our Engineering Culture
- We operate in agile sprint cycles with a focus on rapid iteration and continuous delivery.
- Our team values independence and ownership, with each engineer taking full responsibility for their features from architecture to production deployment.
- We maintain high standards for code quality while moving quickly to meet market demands. We are building a culture that combines Silicon Valley engineering practices with exceptional local talent.
- Located in Ho Chi Minh City, we've created a work environment that combines Silicon Valley engineering practices with local talent, offering the unique opportunity to work on global-scale problems while being part of Vietnam's growing tech ecosystem.
- We are an equal opportunity employer and value diversity at our company.
Technology
We leverage both our own proprietary models as well as open-sourced ones to achieve state-of-the-art performances for our application purposes. These models include Diffusion Models, LLMs and Deep Recommender Systems. Our software stack is using the most popular frameworks and languages in the AI industry, such as Javascript, Python and Rust on top of the infrastructure stack of things such as Docker, Nginx and Kubernetes. Our team always stays on top of the latest trends to ensure that we are defensible and can produce the best results consistently.