Senior Backend Engineer, Real-Time Fantasy Platform

Sleeper; San Francisco, New York (CA, NY); Hybrid; USD 180,000 - 300,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Equity

Healthcare

401(k)

PTO

Hybrid work

Job summary

Sleeper is hiring Senior and Staff Backend Engineers for its fantasy sports product, handling real-time scoring, leagues, drafts, waivers, trades, and chat across NFL, NBA, and more. You’ll own systems end to end—from data model to API—working with designers and frontend teams in a fast, product-driven environment.

The role requires 5+ years (Staff 8+), deep distributed systems knowledge, and strong backend language proficiency.

Qualifications

• 5+ years backend engineering experience in consumer-scale products.
• Experience owning architecture of systems at large scale (Staff level).
• Ships features end-to-end, not just infrastructure.

Responsibilities

• Build and own core fantasy systems—leagues, rosters, drafts, waivers and trades, matchups, and scoring—from data model to API.
• Scale real-time scoring to deliver changes with low latency to millions of users.
• Ship features end-to-end with designers and mobile/web engineers.
• Keep production healthy with monitoring, profiling, and capacity planning ahead of the season.
• At Staff: own the architecture and raise the bar through design and code reviews.

Skills

Elixir

Go

Java

Python

Rust

Node.js

Job description

Sleeper is hiring Senior and Staff Backend Engineers for its fantasy sports product, handling real-time scoring, leagues, drafts, waivers, trades, and chat across NFL, NBA, and more. You’ll own systems end to end—from data model to API—working with designers and frontend teams in a fast, product-driven environment.

The role requires 5+ years (Staff 8+), deep distributed systems knowledge, and strong backend language proficiency.