Pete Shima

Job Posting Review: Grinding Gear Games – Web Programmer

In Job Posting Review we take a quick, or sometimes detailed, look at a public job posting and comment on it. Since job postings come and go, a copy is listed here where we break it down. If you are the hiring manager and think I am wrong, please reach out to me for corrections or details.

From Wikipedia

Grinding Gear Games is a video game developer and the largest video game company in New Zealand.[2][3][4] Founded in 2006, the Auckland company has produced one game, Path of Exile, which was released in 2013. Founded as an independent developer, the company was majority acquired by Chinese technology company Tencent in 2018, after Tencent had published Path of Exile in China in 2017. In 2025 Grinding Gear Games had 240 staff in New Zealand and paid almost NZ$100 million in dividends to Tencent that year.

The post: https://www.grindinggear.com/?page=careers

My comments/insights/guesses are highlighted in yellow.

Web Programmer

We are looking for a full stack Web Programmer to join the Path of Exile development team.

I bet they already have some web programmers but their website looks like its from 1992 so maybe they intend to update it. In some ways it is probably good they put more focus on the game than the website but with path of exile the trade website is a crucial part of the game for most players.


We are seeking someone with:

  • Experience with PHP MVC / ORM frameworks (preferably Zend Framework / Laminas / Doctrine).
  • Front-end JavaScript and CSS / SASS experience.
  • Two years of commercial Web Programmer experience.

It still surprises me how much PHP is actually out there. A lot of folks can shit on PHP but at the end of the day it is still widely used and works. Looks like someone with front end experience and probably on the more junior side with 2 years experience.

Experience with the following is a bonus:

  • Linux and command-line tools
  • SQL
  • API design
  • Payment Systems
  • RequireJS
  • Nginx
  • Redis
  • Path of Exile

Ok so they run on linux, use some sort of SQL based database, nginx prolly for front end and redis probably for caching. Not much to glean on here, maybe a LNMP stack.

Not much to glean on this one! If you are in AZ/NZ and looking for a web programming role and into Path of Exile, this might be a good one for you.