Staff Backend Engineer - Kotlin/Spring Lead

Fanatics; New City (NY); Remote; USD 144,000 - 235,000; Full time

Job summary

Fanatics Core, based in New York, NY, is seeking an experienced Backend Staff Engineer to lead strategic, end-to-end technical initiatives across our Fanatics App and ecosystem. You will guide architecture, set engineering standards, and mentor engineers while delivering scalable backend and cross-cutting features.

You will collaborate with product, design, and other stakeholders, driving timely delivery in a fast-growing environment.

Qualifications

• 7+ years of experience building highly scalable, performant and evolvable backend distributed systems; proficiency in Spring with Kotlin and/or Java is a plus.
• Demonstrated ability to drive best practices in backend development and mentor others in effective coding and architectural strategies, such as clean code, hexagonal/layered architectures, domain driven design and other design and architectural patterns
• Knowledge of observability practices, including logging, monitoring, and tracing in distributed systems.
• Expertise in Agile software delivery, with a track record of modeling and driving process improvements across teams, and ability to collaborate cross-functionally across diverse teams within large enterprise environments, driving alignment and shared success.
• Excellent communication skills, capable of conveying complex technical concepts clearly and effectively to diverse audiences, including engineers, executives, and non-technical stakeholders.
• Team-first mentality, with a willingness to do what it takes to get the job done and a desire to strive for better.
• Thrives in a high-growth environment where priorities evolve regularly and decisions are made quickly.

Responsibilities

• Drive the development, testing, documentation, and deployment of high-quality, scalable software into production
• Develop a comprehensive understanding of the industry, product, and roadmap, leveraging this knowledge to shape team strategy and influence the direction of the organization
• Lead the end-to-end technical execution of complex features and systems, from ideation and architecture to deployment and refinement
• Define and enforce engineering principles, guidelines, and best practices
• Partner closely with product, design, and other stakeholders to make high-impact technical decisions that align with both business goals and long-term scalability
• Lead incident resolution as part of the on-call rotation, ensuring swift diagnosis and remediation of critical software issues
• Proactively identify and remove roadblocks, occasionally collaborating cross-team collaboration to maintain momentum on complex projects
• Conduct and elevate code reviews, sharing expertise to enhance code quality
• Steer team planning and design discussions, introducing innovative approaches to solve technical challenges and optimize design patterns
• Champion improvements to software quality, testability, operational metrics, and team documentation, setting a higher standard for the organization
• Mentor and coach engineers at all levels, fostering a culture of continuous learning and professional growth across the team
• Be open to occasional travel to Fanatics offices and other locations for conferences, events, meetings, and team-building activities

Skills

Backend development

Spring/Kotlin/Java

Observability

Agile

Communication

Leadership

High-growth environment

Tools

Kafka/SQS

Kubernetes

Helm

Terraform

Go

Java

Kotlin

Job description

Fanatics Core, based in New York, NY, is seeking an experienced Backend Staff Engineer to lead strategic, end-to-end technical initiatives across our Fanatics App and ecosystem. You will guide architecture, set engineering standards, and mentor engineers while delivering scalable backend and cross-cutting features.

You will collaborate with product, design, and other stakeholders, driving timely delivery in a fast-growing environment.