Senior Software Engineer (Fantasy Sports)

CultureMill Recruiting; San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 190,000 - 260,000; Full time

Job summary

CultureMill Recruiting is assisting a leading fantasy sports platform in San Francisco in hiring a senior backend engineer. You will own data model, services, and API contracts for leagues, drafts, waivers, trades, and live scoring, building scalable systems used by millions weekly.

You will collaborate with designers and front-end teams, shipping features end-to-end. With 5+ years of backend experience and strong proficiency in Go, Java, or Python, you will contribute to architecture and

Qualifications

• 5+ years of backend engineering experience.
• Shipped features end to end for consumer-scale products.
• Experience operating services with millions of users.

Responsibilities

• Build and own core backend systems for leagues, drafts, waivers, trades, and scoring—from data model to API.
• Scale real-time scoring and live updates for rosters and sessions.
• Ship features end to end in collaboration with designers and mobile/web engineers.
• At Staff level: contribute to architecture and scale discussions, mentor others.

Skills

Backend engineering

Go

Java

Python

Elixir

Rust

Node.js

Job description

Our client runs one of the largest fantasy sports platforms in the country — millions of people running leagues, drafting, working trades, and following games as they happen. Backed by several of the most respected venture firms in Silicon Valley, and growing across multiple product lines, this is a rare opportunity to work at the intersection of tech, sports, and significant scale.

Role Overview

This role sits on the fantasy sports product — the core of the platform, and the surface millions of people open every week. Leagues, drafts, waivers, trades, matchups, live scoring, and league chat, across NFL, NBA, and more.

All of it runs at real scale on a calendar that doesn't move: live scoring reaching every roster quickly and correctly, drafts running in real time.

You’ll own systems and features end to end — data model, service, and the API contract with the mobile and web teams. You’ll work directly with designers, and engineers have a say in product decisions here.

Flexible up to Staff level for qualified Engineers.

What You’ll Do

• Build and own the core systems behind fantasy — leagues, drafts, waivers and trades, matchups, and scoring — from data model to API.
• Scale real-time scoring: live stat feeds delivered to millions of rosters and open sessions, fast and correct.
• Ship features end to end with designers and the mobile and web engineers.
• At Staff: own architecture, raise the bar through design and code review, and help others ship at scale.

Who You Are

• You're a sports fan. Best case, you play fantasy.
• You have 5+ years of backend engineering experience.
• You've built and operated consumer products with millions of users and know what your code does in production at that scale.
• You've shipped features end to end — not only infrastructure.
• You're strong in at least one backend language — Go, Java, Elixir, Python, Rust, Node, or similar.
• You use AI tooling well and know when to overrule it.