Principal Engineer - Core

fanaticsfbg; United States; Remote; USD 240,000 - 299,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Bonus eligibility

In-person onboarding NYC

Job summary

Fanatics is seeking a Principal Engineer to act as the technical north star for a shared platform powering sports betting, ecommerce, collectibles, and adjacent experiences. You will lead architectural direction across identity, payments, loyalty, wallet, data, and platform services, blending hands-on leadership with cross-team influence.

The role emphasizes shaping long-term technical strategy, mentoring senior staff, and driving high-impact initiatives with executive-level communication.

Qualifications

• 15+ years of software engineering experience, including 10+ years at Senior Staff or above owning design for cross-team efforts.
• Proven success leading multi-quarter programs across multiple teams with minimal oversight.
• Track record identifying business-critical issues and championing new investments independently.

Responsibilities

• Define the long-term architecture strategy for an event-driven platform, simplifying the codebase and proactively addressing systemic technical risk.
• Lead strategically critical, cross-vertical initiatives and establish reusable patterns and trade-off frameworks.
• Serve as the senior escalation point for complex distributed-systems incidents, guiding teams through high-stakes resolutions.
• Mentor senior and staff-level engineers, raising the technical bar and fostering accountability.
• Partner with product and business leaders to align on technical strategy and build consensus on ambiguous, high-impact initiatives.
• Set organizational standards for testing, observability, incident response, and platform resilience, representing the group externally.

Skills

Architectural leadership

Cross-team influence

Incident leadership

Mentoring staff engineers

Technical communication

Strategic thinking

Job description

Role overview

A Strategic Engineering Group is hiring a Principal Engineer to act as the technical north star for the shared platform that powers sports betting, ecommerce, collectibles, and adjacent experiences. The role spans identity, payments, loyalty, wallet, data, and platform services, and combines hands-on architectural leadership with cross-team influence. This is not a heads-down individual contributor position; the engineer will help shape long-term technical direction across the organization.

Responsibilities

• Define the long-term architecture strategy for an event-driven platform, simplifying the codebase and proactively addressing systemic technical risk
• Lead strategically critical, cross-vertical initiatives and establish reusable patterns and trade-off frameworks that other teams adopt
• Serve as the senior escalation point for complex distributed-systems incidents, guiding teams through high-stakes resolutions
• Mentor senior and staff-level engineers, raising the technical bar and fostering a culture of accountability
• Partner with product and business leaders to align on technical strategy and build consensus on ambiguous, high-impact initiatives
• Set organizational standards for testing, observability, incident response, and platform resilience, while representing the group externally through writing, talks, or open-source work

Requirements

• 15+ years of software engineering experience, including 10+ years at Senior Staff or above owning technical design for large, cross-team efforts
• Demonstrated success leading multi-quarter programs that span multiple teams or verticals with minimal oversight
• Track record of identifying business-critical problems and championing new investment independently
• History of introducing technical patterns or standards that other teams adopt without direct involvement
• Experience mentoring staff and senior staff engineers toward technical leadership roles
• Strong incident leadership background with a focus on systemic hardening rather than one-off fixes, plus excellent communication skills for building consensus across engineering and executive audiences

Nice to have

• Background in payments, identity, or loyalty platforms within a regulated environment such as gaming or fintech
• Experience with organization convergence, platform consolidation, or large-scale architectural migration
• Familiarity with SOX, PCI, or similar control frameworks as they relate to engineering systems

Benefits and work setup

• Reported base compensation range of $239,560–$299,450 USD, with additional bonus eligibility for full-time employees
• Some interview and onboarding steps may include in-person components, including a multi-day cultural immersion in New York City for certain full-time, non-seasonal hires; specific travel requirements vary by role and location