Staff Backend Engineer – Real-Time DFS & Prediction Markets

Expa; Northern, New York (KY, NY); Hybrid; USD 180,000 - 300,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Equity

Medical Insurance

Dental Insurance

Vision Insurance

401k

Generous PTO

Hybrid Work Policy

Job summary

Sleeper is hiring Senior and Staff Backend Engineers for Sleeper Picks, a real-money product with daily fantasy sports and prediction markets. You’ll own systems end to end—from data models to APIs—touching pricing, settlement, and wallets.

This role emphasizes shipping features with designers and web/mobile teams, and advancing architecture at scale. Ideal candidates bring 5+ years in backend engineering, deep distributed systems experience, and proficiency in Elixir, Go, Java, Python, Rust, or

Qualifications

• 5+ years of backend engineering experience
• Shipped features end to end, not just infrastructure
• Experience with systems where wrong results cost money (payments/trading)
• Strong in distributed systems: data modeling, caching, queues
• Proficient in at least one backend language (Elixir/Go/Java/Python/Rust/Node)

Responsibilities

• Build and own core Picks systems end to end (lifecycle, pricing, market data)
• Ensure correct real-money reconciliation and settlement
• Handle real-time at scale with moving prices and settlements
• Collaborate with risk/trading on exposure management
• Integrate with third-party projection, market, and payment providers
• Ship features end to end with designers and mobile/web teams
• As a Staff engineer, own system architecture and mentor others

Skills

Backend engineering

Distributed systems

Real-time systems

Payments knowledge

Backend languages

Job description

Sleeper is hiring Senior and Staff Backend Engineers for Sleeper Picks, a real-money product with daily fantasy sports and prediction markets. You’ll own systems end to end—from data models to APIs—touching pricing, settlement, and wallets.

This role emphasizes shipping features with designers and web/mobile teams, and advancing architecture at scale. Ideal candidates bring 5+ years in backend engineering, deep distributed systems experience, and proficiency in Elixir, Go, Java, Python, Rust, or