Staff Platform Engineer, Data Storage - Core

Fanatics Betting & Gaming; New York (NY); On-site; USD 140,000 - 210,000; Full time

Job summary

Fanatics Betting & Gaming seeks a Staff Platform Storage Engineer to join the Platform Storage team in the United States. You will own a portfolio of production PostgreSQL databases and our Kafka/MSK streaming platform, serving multiple product teams with reliability and high performance.

As a Staff Engineer, you will drive complex infrastructure initiatives, set standards, and mentor engineers, focusing on self-service tooling and GitOps-based operations across the data platform.

Qualifications

• 8+ years of platform/infrastructure or database engineering experience with production PostgreSQL (RDS) at scale.
• Strong experience operating Kafka (MSK or self-managed) in production, including topic management and CDC pipelines.
• Strong SQL fluency for diagnosing query performance and reviewing schema changes across teams.
• Infrastructure as Code experience (Terraform).
• Experience owning production database reliability across multiple downstream teams.
• Strong cross-team communicator and partner with product teams.

Responsibilities

• Own database liaison for production PostgreSQL/RDS instances: query review, schema changes, performance tuning, incident triage.
• Operate and evolve Kafka/MSK streaming platform: topic lifecycle via GitOps, cluster health, and CDC pipeline reliability.
• Build and maintain self-service tooling for provisioning database and streaming resources without manual tickets.
• Drive platform stability projects: upgrades, root-cause fixes, capacity and cost optimization across database and streaming fleet.
• Act as escalation point for cross-team incidents linked to shared data infrastructure.

Skills

PostgreSQL

Kafka

SQL

Terraform

GitOps

Cross-team communication

Tools

RDS/PostgreSQL

Kafka/MSK

Kubernetes (Strimzi)

pgbouncer

Job description

New York, NY, United States

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.

Platform Storage builds and operates the data infrastructure that powers Fanatics Betting & Gaming: PostgreSQL/RDS, MongoDB, Kafka (MSK), DynamoDB, and Elasticache/Valkey. The team owns database and streaming reliability for dozens of product engineering teams — acting as both platform builders and embedded technical partners, with a focus on self-service tooling, GitOps-managed infrastructure, and hands‑on ownership of production data systems.

About the Role

Fanatics Betting & Gaming (FBG) is seeking a Staff Platform Storage Engineer to join our Platform Storage team, based in the United States. This role owns a critical slice of our data infrastructure — including a portfolio of production PostgreSQL databases and our Kafka/MSK streaming platform — and acts as the embedded platform liaison for the product teams built on top of them.

As a Staff Engineer, you will operate with a high degree of autonomy, leading complex database and streaming infrastructure initiatives, setting standards for reliability and performance, and acting as the go‑to technical resource for schema design, query performance, and incident response across the teams you support.

Responsibilities

• Own database liaison responsibility for a portfolio of production PostgreSQL/RDS instances — query review, schema change approval, performance tuning, and incident triage for the teams built on top of them.
• Operate and evolve our Kafka/MSK streaming platform: topic lifecycle management via GitOps, cluster health across environments, and CDC (Debezium) pipeline reliability.
• Build and maintain self‑service tooling that lets product teams provision database and streaming resources without a manual ticket queue.
• Drive platform stability projects — operator/version upgrades, root‑cause fixes for recurring operational issues, and proactive capacity/cost optimization across the database and streaming fleet.
• Act as the technical escalation point for cross‑team incidents where the root cause traces back to shared data infrastructure (replication lag, connection exhaustion, CPU/throughput issues).
• Represent Platform Storage in cross‑org infrastructure initiatives and standardization efforts.
• Mentor engineers and participate in on‑call rotations.

What You Bring

• 8+ years of experience in platform, infrastructure, or database engineering, with deep hands‑on production experience running PostgreSQL (RDS) at scale.
• Strong experience operating Kafka (MSK or self‑managed) in production, including topic management and CDC/event‑streaming pipelines.
• Strong SQL fluency — comfortable diagnosing query performance issues and reviewing schema changes for teams you don't sit inside of.
• Infrastructure as Code expertise (Terraform).
• Experience owning production database reliability across multiple downstream teams simultaneously — able to prioritize across a portfolio, not just one system.
• Strong cross‑team communicator; this role is equal parts infrastructure engineering and technical partnership with the teams you support.

Nice to Have

• Experience with GitOps‑managed Kubernetes operators (Strimzi or equivalent) for stream infrastructure.
• MongoDB or DynamoDB operational experience.
• Experience with pgbouncer, connection pooling, and query‑level performance diagnostics.
• Prior work on platform cost optimization initiatives at multi‑cluster scale.
• Exposure to regulated or high‑availability environments (gaming, fintech, or similar).

Depending on the role, your interview and onboarding experience may include in‑person components, such as onsite interviews or Launching into Better: LIVE—a multi‑day cultural immersion in New York City for full‑time, non‑seasonal hires. These sessions are designed to build connection and bring our culture to life, though specific travel and participation requirements will be confirmed based on your role and location. Your recruiter will provide clear guidance at each stage of the process.

Ranges will change based on country and state of residence, which are reflected in Geographical Zones defined by Fanatics Betting and Gaming. The range incorporates all of our Geographical Compensation Zones and is subject to change as the Zone associated with the actual offer is confirmed. In addition to the base and bonus, full‑time employment, and more. For information about our benefits, please visit https://benefitsatfanatics.com/

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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 hiring process or thereafter. Any information that you do provide will be recorded and maintained in a confidential file.

As set forth in Fanatics Betting & Gaming’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 measure the effectiveness of the outreach and positive recruitment efforts we undertake pursuant to VEVRAA. Classification of protected categories is 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.

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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.

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