Senior Software Engineer

Rival; United States; On-site; USD 175,000 - 200,000; Full time

Job summary

Rival is seeking a Senior Software Engineer to own a live platform and production stack. You’ll directly influence architecture, code, and partner interactions every day, reporting to leadership and collaborating with the CEO and product lead.

You’ll work across Next.js front ends and NestJS GraphQL/REST services, driving reliability, deployments, and cross‑functional collaboration with enterprise partners. Equity accompanies strong compensation.

Qualifications

• 6+ years building production software with ownership of live platforms.
• Deep TypeScript experience; strong front-end and back-end skills.
• Experience with Next.js, React, Node.js (NestJS) and GraphQL.
• Solid PostgreSQL data modelling; Prisma is a plus.
• Proven ability to improve inherited systems without slowing delivery.
• Comfort deploying, monitoring, and incident response in production.
• Experience collaborating with contractors or external shops.
• Excellent communication with non-technical partners.

Responsibilities

• Own architecture, codebase, and day-to-day delivery for Next.js and NestJS services.
• Write production code across full stack including real-time features.
• Own reliability, deployments, monitoring, and incident response.
• Produce durable documentation for systems and integrations.
• Review partner code, set standards, and uphold quality.
• Identify tech debt and risk, prioritizing shipping speed.
• Translate product priorities into technical plans and releases.
• Support enterprise partner integration planning and security questions.

Skills

Ownership of production systems

TypeScript

Full-stack React/Next.js

Node.js/NestJS

GraphQL

PostgreSQL

Prisma

Code quality & reviews

Observability & incident response

Contractor/external dev shop work

Tools

Vercel

Render

Docker

Socket.IO

BullMQ

API Auth & security practices

Job description

We're hiring a Senior Software Engineer to be the hands‑on technical owner of our live platform. You'll take over a production TypeScript codebase that enterprise sports and brand partners depend on every day. You'll write a large share of the code yourself, and you'll set the engineering standards for our external development partner.

This is a senior role, not a management role. You'll work in the code every day and make the architecture calls. You'll also be the person our partners and our dev shop look to on technical questions. You'll work directly with the CEO and product lead, and you'll have real influence on where the platform goes next.

What you'll do

• Own the architecture, codebase and day-to-day delivery across our Next.js front ends and NestJS GraphQL/REST services.
• Write production code across the full stack: new game types, real-time features, partner integrations and platform improvements.
• Take over hands‑on responsibility for reliability, deployments, monitoring and incident response.
• Complete a structured handoff from our current technical advisor, and write durable documentation of systems, deployment processes and partner-specific integrations.
• Review and guide work from our external development partner: set standards, review pull requests and hold the bar on quality.
• Find technical debt and operational risk, then fix it in an order that doesn't slow down shipping.
• Turn product priorities and partner requirements into practical technical plans, estimates and releases.
• Support enterprise partners on integration planning, security questionnaires and technical discovery calls.

Our stack

• TypeScript throughout: Next.js (App Router), React, Tailwind CSS, Apollo Client
• NestJS GraphQL and REST services, Prisma, Zod, BullMQ workers, Socket.IO
• Hosting on Vercel (front ends) and Render (APIs, Postgres, Redis); Docker Compose locally
• Clerk authentication, JWTs, API keys and HMAC-signed webhooks
• Mixpanel and Meta Pixel for analytics

What we're looking for

• 6+ years of professional software engineering, with real ownership of production systems used by customers.
• Deep TypeScript experience and strong full-stack skills: React/Next.js on the front end, Node.js (ideally NestJS) and GraphQL on the back end.
• Solid PostgreSQL and data-modeling skills; Prisma experience is a plus.
• A track record of improving systems you inherited while keeping customer delivery going.
• Comfort owning production: deployments, observability, debugging live issues and incident response.
• Experience working with contractors or an external dev shop, including code review, setting standards and accountability.
• Clear communication with non-technical teammates and enterprise partners.
• Low ego, high accountability, and comfort in a lean, fast-moving startup.

Nice to have

• Sports, media, gaming, loyalty, rewards or other high-engagement consumer products.
• Real-time or event-driven systems: WebSockets, queues, leaderboards, notifications, gamification.
• Identity, SSO, CRM or customer-data-platform integrations.
• Enterprise security reviews or technical diligence.
• Experience as an early or founding engineer at a startup.

Why Rival

You'll get real ownership of a live platform with established enterprise customers, and a short path from your code to products that millions of fans use. As we grow the team, you'll help shape it.

Compensation:

$175,000-$200,000 + equity