Staff Engineer - Backend/Kotlin (REMOTE)
Overview
As a Backend Staff Engineer at Fanatics Core, you are a recognized technical leader. You operate both strategically and hands-on while leading ambitious projects, and your solutions set the standard for the team. Your bold decisions balance immediate business needs with long-term technical excellence. Through your leadership, you cultivate a culture of excellence and innovation that leaves a lasting impact on both your immediate team and the broader mobile team. Lastly, you are user-obsessed and know how to drive features from the backend all the way to the frontend.
We own the Fanatics App, the brand-forward application of Fanatics that encompasses elements of all of our different brands and businesses. The Fanatics App brings together Free to Play games, live events, ecommerce, and new product experiences to deliver a new Sports platform. Fundamentally, we are one team in everything we do from the user experience to coding and architecture. In order to deliver on our Customer Promise, we use best in class technologies; thus allowing platforms to be as up to date as possible so that we can rapidly deliver and innovate in this exciting new market.
Every time a fan places a bet, earns a reward, or checks out on Fanatics — Fanatics Core made that possible. We build the shared foundations — identity, payments, loyalty, wallet, data, and platform — that power sports betting, ecommerce, collectibles, and beyond. We supercharge the business by providing products and capabilities so that teams can focus on what matters most: building delightful experiences for the fans.
Responsibilities
Drive the development, testing, documentation, and deployment of high-quality, scalable software into production
Develop a comprehensive understanding of the industry, product, and roadmap, leveraging this knowledge to shape team strategy and influence the direction of the organization
Lead the end-to-end technical execution of complex features and systems, from ideation and architecture to deployment and refinement
Define and enforce engineering principles, guidelines, and best practices
Partner closely with product, design, and other stakeholders to make high-impact technical decisions that align with both business goals and long-term scalability
Lead incident resolution as part of the on-call rotation, ensuring swift diagnosis and remediation of critical software issues
Proactively identify and remove roadblocks, occasionally collaborating cross-team collaboration to maintain momentum on complex projects
Conduct and elevate code reviews, sharing expertise to enhance code quality
Steer team planning and design discussions, introducing innovative approaches to solve technical challenges and optimize design patterns
Champion improvements to software quality, testability, operational metrics, and team documentation, setting a higher standard for the organization
Mentor and coach engineers at all levels, fostering a culture of continuous learning and professional growth across the team
Be open to occasional travel to Fanatics offices and other locations for conferences, events, meetings, and team-building activities
Required Qualifications
7+ years of experience building highly scalable, performant and evolvable backend distributed systems; proficiency in Spring with Kotlin and/or Java is a plus.
Demonstrated ability to drive best practices in backend development and mentor others in effective coding and architectural strategies, such as clean code, hexagonal/layered architectures, domain driven design and other design and architectural patterns
Knowledge of observability practices, including logging, monitoring, and tracing in distributed systems.
Expertise in Agile software delivery, with a track record of modeling and driving process improvements across teams, and ability to collaborate cross-functionally across diverse teams within large enterprise environments, driving alignment and shared success.
Excellent communication skills, capable of conveying complex technical concepts clearly and effectively to diverse audiences, including engineers, executives, and non-technical stakeholders.
Team-first mentality, with a willingness to do what it takes to get the job done and a desire to strive for better.
Thrives in a high-growth environment where priorities evolve regularly and decisions are made quickly.
Preferred Qualifications
Strong Experience in the sports industry, gaming and content delivery
Highly effective with Kotlin, Java and/or Go
Expertise in messaging technologies such as Kafka or Amazon SQS, with a solid understanding of event-driven architectures.
Comfortable working with Cloud Native and Infrastructure as Code, like Kubernetes, Helm and Terraform
Ability to work in diverse codebases, both legacy and greenfield, in different languages and environments
If you possess some of these qualifications but not all of them, we still encourage you to apply!
Overview:
As an Engineering Manager at Fanatics, you will be a technical leader with the ability to grow and scale engineering teams that can deliver business results and ship high-quality software for customer-facing products and internal platforms.
We own the Fanatics App, the mobile app at Fanatics that encompasses elements from all of our different brands and businesses. The Fanatics App brings together Free to Play games, live events, ecommerce, and new product experiences to deliver a best-in-class Sports platform. Fundamentally, we are one team in everything we do, from the user experience to coding and architecture. We aim to deliver on our Customer Promise by delighting our millions of monthly active users.
Responsibilities:
Provide leadership and technical expertise within your engineering vertical
Build and lead one or more teams that will deliver software while adhering (and contributing) to engineering best practices
Clarify technical requirements, negotiate priorities, and manage projects to deliver on time by leading daily scrum activities
Clears or escalates blockers to accelerate progress of delivery
Work closely with your product and design partners to create an ambitious, yet achievable roadmap that can be communicated to executives and stakeholders
Drive reliable and predictable team execution by setting clear objectives, using data and KPIs to drive transparency, and champion continuous improvement across engineering practices and systems
Provide clear updates (KPIs, status, metrics) to an executive audience and key stakeholders
Determine where to simplify, optimize, or extend solutions for the best outcomes
Help to recruit, assess and onboard a diverse group of talented engineers
Must be open to occasional travel to Fanatics offices and other locations for conferences, events, meetings, and team-building activities
Required Qualifications:
1+ years of experience managing an engineering team
4+ years of experience building highly scalable and fault tolerant systems
You have knowledge of a broad range of design approaches and can deconstruct an architecture to be developed by different teams
Able to scope a project and with targeted dates to ensure they meet business needs
Knows how to discern which features are essential, can be triaged, or omitted and works to negotiate with Product Management
Able to effectively communicate complex technical subjects to a variety of audiences (engineers, technical leaders, marketing and operations teams, non-technical functional leaders)
Familiar with Agile software product delivery and SCRUM methodology
Excellent analytical and problem solving skills
Solid report writing skills with the ability to gather, evaluate and analyze relevant information while structuring material in a logical and coherent manner.
Thrives in an entrepreneurial, hyper-growth environment where priorities evolve regularly and decisions are made quickly
Team-first mentality, with a willingness to do what it takes to get the job done and a desire to strive for better
Able to effectively work cross-functionally within an enterprise environment
Preferred Qualifications:
Experience working in a start-up environment
Strong mobile software engineering background
Experience working with Kotlin Multiplatform and/or Compose Multiplatform
If you possess some of these qualifications but not all of them, we still encourage you to apply!
#LI-AC2
Ranges will change based on country and state of residence, which are reflected in Geographical Zones defined by Fanatics Betting and Gaming. The range incorporates all of our Geographical Compensation Zones and is subject to change as the Zone associated with the actual offer is confirmed. In addition to the base and bonus, full-time employment, and more. For information about our benefits, please visit https://benefitsatfanatics.com/
Salary Range
$144,000—$235,000 USD