Staff Backend Engineer

Fanatics; Florida; On-site; USD 150,000 - 230,000; Full time

Job summary

Fanatics Live is building the future of live commerce for sports fans and collectors. We seek a Staff Software Engineer to shape the web and software platforms behind Fanatics Live, tackling tough technical challenges while guiding architecture, engineering practices, and direction for scalable, reliable customer experiences.

You will partner with engineers, Product, Design, Data, and other stakeholders to turn ambitious ideas into durable platforms and high‑quality software that supports high

Qualifications

• 8+ years of professional software engineering experience.
• Significant experience in frontend, backend, API, distributed systems, or full-stack development.
• Demonstrated experience architecting and delivering complex systems involving multiple services or teams.
• Experience leading significant technical initiatives without formal people management authority.
• Strong understanding of scalable web architectures, APIs, caching, asynchronous processing, cloud infrastructure, performance, and reliability.

Responsibilities

• Lead the technical design and delivery of complex, high-impact initiatives across Fanatics Live.
• Design and evolve scalable architectures supporting live commerce, discovery, community interaction, and transactional experiences.
• Solve complex engineering problems spanning multiple systems, services, and teams.
• Establish technical direction, reusable patterns, and engineering standards for faster, more reliable builds.
• Partner with Product and Design to translate customer and business opportunities into technical solutions.
• Remain hands-on through architecture, prototyping, implementation, code review, and debugging.
• Identify and address scalability, reliability, security, performance, and operational risks.
• Make thoughtful tradeoffs between speed, customer experience, technical quality, and long-term platform health.
• Improve observability, testing, deployment safety, performance, and resilience across Fanatics Live.
• Lead technical response to production issues and translate learnings into durable improvements.
• Mentor engineers and raise the technical bar through reviews and day-to-day leadership.
• Build alignment across teams and communicate complex decisions clearly.

Skills

Software engineering

Full-stack development

Distributed systems

Architectural design

Mentoring engineers

Technical leadership

Communication

Job description

About Us

Fanatics is building a leading global digital sports platform. We ignite the passions of global sports fans and maximize the presence and reach for our hundreds of sports partners globally by offering products and services across Fanatics Commerce, Fanatics Collectibles, and Fanatics Betting & Gaming, allowing sports fans to Buy, Collect, and Bet. Through the Fanatics platform, sports fans can buy licensed fan gear, jerseys, lifestyle and streetwear products, headwear, and hardgoods; collect physical and digital trading cards, sports memorabilia, and other digital assets; and bet as the company builds its Sportsbook and iGaming platform. Fanatics has an established database of over 100 million global sports fans; a global partner network with approximately 900 sports properties, including major national and international professional sports leagues, players associations, teams, colleges, college conferences and retail partners, 2,500 athletes and celebrities, and 200 exclusive athletes; and over 2,000 retail locations, including its Lids retail stores. Our more than 22,000 employees are committed to relentlessly enhancing the fan experience and delighting sports fans globally.

About the Team

Fanatics Collectibles is a new company operating at the intersection of collectibles, culture, and technology. Backed by world-class investors, operators, and sports & entertainment partners, we are building the global leader in next-generation collectibles. As part of the broader Fanatics ecosystem, we leverage a digital sports platform that spans over 900 sports properties and engages more than 81 million fans. Together, we are reimagining every part of the collectibles experience for fans, partners, and creators.

Role Summary

Fanatics Live is building the future of live commerce for sports fans and collectors, bringing together content, community, and commerce in highly interactive digital experiences.

We’re looking for a Staff Software Engineer to help shape and build the web and software platforms behind Fanatics Live. You’ll tackle some of our most challenging technical problems while helping establish the architecture, engineering practices, and technical direction that enable our teams to move quickly and build reliably at scale.

This is a highly technical individual contributor role for an engineer who enjoys being hands‑on while also creating leverage across teams. You’ll partner with engineers, Product, Design, Data, and other stakeholders to turn ambitious product ideas into scalable, reliable customer experiences.

What You’ll Do

• Lead the technical design and delivery of complex, high-impact initiatives across Fanatics Live.
• Design and evolve scalable architectures supporting live commerce, discovery, community interaction, and transactional experiences.
• Solve complex and ambiguous engineering problems that span multiple systems, services, and teams.
• Establish technical direction, reusable patterns, and engineering standards that enable teams to build faster and more reliably.
• Partner with Product and Design to translate customer and business opportunities into thoughtful technical solutions.
• Remain hands‑on through architecture, prototyping, implementation, code review, debugging, and solving particularly challenging engineering problems.
• Identify and address scalability, reliability, security, performance, and operational risks.
• Make thoughtful tradeoffs between speed, customer experience, technical quality, operational complexity, and long‑term platform health.
• Improve observability, testing, deployment safety, performance, and resilience across critical Fanatics Live experiences.
• Lead technical response to significant production issues and translate learnings into durable platform improvements.
• Mentor engineers and raise the technical bar through design reviews, code reviews, and day‑to‑day technical leadership.
• Build alignment across engineering teams and communicate complex technical decisions clearly to technical and non‑technical partners.

What We’re Looking For

• 8+ years of professional software engineering experience, including experience building and operating production software at scale.
• Deep expertise in modern web and software engineering, with significant experience in frontend, backend, API, distributed systems, or full‑stack development.
• Demonstrated experience architecting and delivering complex systems involving multiple services, components, or engineering teams.
• Experience leading significant technical initiatives without relying on formal people‑management authority.
• Strong understanding of scalable web architectures, APIs, caching, asynchronous processing, cloud infrastructure, performance, and system reliability.
• Proven ability to navigate ambiguous problems, identify the most important technical challenges, and create a clear path forward.
• Strong architectural judgment and an ability to balance near‑term delivery with long‑term technical health.
• Experience influencing engineering standards, architecture, or development practices beyond your immediate projects.
• Strong communication skills and the ability to explain complex technical decisions and tradeoffs to a variety of audiences.
• A track record of mentoring engineers and making the engineers around you more effective.

Nice to Have

• Experience building high‑scale consumer marketplaces, e‑commerce, live streaming, social/community, payments, auctions, or other real‑time digital products.
• Experience building software supporting high‑profile live events or rapidly changing traffic patterns.
• Experience with real‑time communication technologies and event‑driven architectures.
• Experience optimizing consumer web applications for performance, reliability, and conversion.

Fanatics Live brings together creators, fans, interactive live experiences, commerce, and community, making experience with real‑time and high‑scale consumer platforms particularly relevant to the role.

The salary range represents base pay only and does not include short‑term or long‑term incentive compensation. When determining base pay, as part of a final compensation package, we consider several factors such as location, experience, qualifications, and training. For information about our benefits, please visit https://benefitsatfanatics.com/

Voluntary Self‑Identification

For government reporting purposes, we ask candidates to respond to the below self‑identification survey.Completion of the form is entirely voluntary. Whatever your decision, it will not be considered in the hiringprocess or thereafter. Any information that you do provide will be recorded and maintained in aconfidential file.

As set forth in Fanatics Collectibles’s Equal Employment Opportunity policy,we do not discriminate on the basis of any protected group status under any applicable law.

If you believe you belong to any of the categories of protected veterans listed below, please indicate by making the appropriate selection.As a government contractor subject to the Vietnam Era Veterans Readjustment Assistance Act (VEVRAA), we request this information in order to measurethe effectiveness of the outreach and positive recruitment efforts we undertake pursuant to VEVRAA. Classification of protected categoriesis as follows:

A "disabled veteran" is one of the following: a veteran of the U.S. military, ground, naval or air service who is entitled to compensation (or who but for the receipt of military retired pay would be entitled to compensation) under laws administered by the Secretary of Veterans Affairs; or a person who was discharged or released from active duty because of a service‑connected disability.

A "recently separated veteran" means any veteran during the three‑year period beginning on the date of such veteran's discharge or release from active duty in the U.S. military, ground, naval, or air service.

An "active duty wartime or campaign badge veteran" means a veteran who served on active duty in the U.S. military, ground, naval or air service during a war, or in a campaign or expedition for which a campaign badge has been authorized under the laws administered by the Department of Defense.

An "Armed forces service medal veteran" means a veteran who, while serving on active duty in the U.S. military, ground, naval or air service, participated in a United States military operation for which an Armed Forces service medal was awarded pursuant to Executive Order 12985.