Staff Software Engineer

Collectors Universe, Inc.; California (MO); On-site; USD 180,000 - 260,000; Full time

Job summary

Collectors Universe, Inc. in Santa Ana, CA, is hiring a Staff Software Engineer to help lead a migration from Java/Spring to NestJS/TypeScript across services and frontends.

You will own architecture, drive modernization, mentor engineers, and push AI-assisted workflows while ensuring security and reliability across the platform. The role requires expert backend skills in TypeScript/Node.js and Java, with leadership experience spanning 1–2 quarters and a strong focus on scalable, observable

Qualifications

• 8+ years of professional software engineering experience with technical leadership.
• Expert-level backend engineering in TypeScript/Node.js and/or Java.
• Full-stack experience with React/Next.js fronts, APIs, and databases.
• Experience modernizing legacy systems with strangler patterns.
• Strong knowledge of PostgreSQL or MySQL and distributed systems.

Responsibilities

• Set technical direction and end-to-end architecture for team domains.
• Lead modernization efforts across monoliths and services.
• Mentor engineers and foster documentation and knowledge sharing.
• Drive AI tooling adoption with secure, verifiable code.
• Collaborate with product, security, and operations for reliability.

Skills

TypeScript/Node.js

Java

Full-stack development

PostgreSQL/MySQL

AWS

AI tooling

Service orchestration

REST/GraphQL/gRPC

Tools

AWS CDK

Terraform

CI/CD pipelines

Job description

Collectors is the leading creator of innovative technology that provides value-added services for collectors worldwide. We grade, authenticate, vault, and sell millions of record-setting collectibles, all while modernizing and digitalizing the process to further our mission of helping collectors pursue their passions. We’re always on the lookout for talented people to join our growing team. Our services span collectible trading cards, autographs, comic books, coins, video games, event tickets, and memorabilia. Our subsidiaries include PSA, PCGS, Beckett, SGC, and Card Ladder. Since our founding in 1986, we have graded and authenticated millions of items. We employ more than 3000 people across our headquarters in Santa Ana, California and offices in New Jersey, Texas, Florida, Japan, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Canada, Mexico, Germany, the UK, and France.

As part of our interview process, we request that candidates have their cameras on during video interviews. This helps foster meaningful conversation and allows us to create an experience that closely resembles our standard working environment. Certain interview steps may take place by phone. For remote roles, and at our discretion, candidates may be asked to participate in an on-site interview as part of the final stages of the process. We understand there may be occasional circumstances requiring accommodation and are happy to discuss them as needed. Your recruiter will be able to clarify expectations and answer any questions you have.

About the Role Beckett is the trusted authority in sports card and collectibles grading, pricing, and marketplace services. Our platform is mid-transformation: a new generation of NestJS/TypeScript microservices and Next.js frontends is actively replacing a prior generation of Java/Spring Boot services, while two large legacy PHP monoliths still power critical grading and e-commerce workflows. Getting this migration right — without disrupting the business — is the defining technical challenge of the next few years. As a Staff Software Engineer, your influence extends beyond your team to the technology organization. You have expertise in the entirety of your team's products and services — how they interact and how data flows between them — and you're building the same understanding of adjacent systems. You lead projects of moderate-to-significant scope over one-to-two-quarter horizons, design for the platform's future rather than just the next feature, and are recognized by peers and leaders as an authority in your domain.

What You'll Do

Set technical direction Own the architecture of your team's domain end to end: services, data flows, integration points, and failure modes across the full portfolio (e.g., NestJS services, their Postgres/MySQL data stores, the legacy systems they front, and the frontends they serve). Design products and services that allow for iterative, autonomous development and future scaling, deliberately reducing the friction of future changes — service boundaries, contract design, data ownership, and migration paths. Lead high-stakes modernization work: defining strangler patterns around the PHP monolith, sequencing Java→TypeScript service replacements, and ensuring byte-compatible, low-risk cutovers. Build a working understanding of adjacent systems and products across the org — grading, marketplace, CRM, payments, identity, data/ETL — and use it to catch cross-system risks early. Set the bar for security, testing, observability, and operational excellence, and use operational data to drive stability and performance improvements. Lead the adoption of AI-assisted engineering across the tech org: establish standards and guardrails for AI coding tools (code review expectations, testing requirements, security and IP hygiene), identify where AI agents can accelerate the modernization effort (legacy code comprehension, test generation, migration scaffolding), and measure the impact. Lead Delivery Successfully lead projects of moderate scope and/or complexity spanning 1–2 quarters, coordinating engineers, stakeholders, and dependencies to a predictable landing. Plan and develop using an explicit value-vs-cost framework, so urgency and prioritization are easily understood by both the team and stakeholders. Identify and communicate blockers and delays within your team to the right stakeholders before they become surprises. Multiply the Organization Foster a culture of knowledge sharing and documentation within your team and with business stakeholders — initiate and facilitate meaningful discussions around complex issues. Build strong relationships with teammates, your manager, business stakeholders, and senior engineers across the organization. Mentor senior and mid-level engineers through design reviews, pairing, and feedback; foster a culture where feedback is sought out and used as a tool for growth. Raise the org's collective AI fluency: share proven workflows, prompts, and agent configurations; coach engineers on when AI tooling helps and when it misleads; and keep the team current as the tooling landscape evolves.

What We're Looking For

Required 8+ years of professional software engineering experience, including demonstrated technical leadership of multi-engineer, multi-quarter projects. Expert-level backend engineering in TypeScript/Node.js and/or Java, with the range to be effective across our polyglot estate (TypeScript, Java 21, PHP, Python, C#). Full-stack range: hands-on production experience across the entire stack — modern React/Next.js frontends, API and service layers, relational data stores, and the infrastructure they run on — with the judgment to design and review at every layer, even where others do the bulk of the implementation. Proven experience modernizing legacy systems: strangler-fig migrations, service extraction from monoliths, or platform re-architecture under live traffic. Deep relational database expertise (PostgreSQL, MySQL): data modeling, migrations, performance, and the realities of shared-database coupling between services. Strong distributed-systems fundamentals: service boundaries, API/contract design (REST, GraphQL, gRPC), messaging (SQS), idempotency, and failure handling. Production AWS depth — ECS, Lambda, networking, IAM — and infrastructure-as-code fluency (AWS CDK and/or Terraform). A track record of raising engineering standards: testing strategy, observability, documentation, and incident response. Strong, hands‑on background in AI tooling and usage: daily fluency with AI coding assistants and agentic tools (Claude Code, Copilot, Cursor, or similar), experience integrating them into team workflows (CI, code review, documentation), and mature judgment about verification, security, and the limits of AI-generated code. Excellent written and verbal communication with technical and business audiences alike.

Nice to Have

Experience with frontend architecture at scale (design systems, micro-frontends, performance budgets) or mobile (React Native/Expo). Experience with e-commerce, marketplace, payments, or high‑traffic consumer platforms. Data platform exposure (Snowflake, ETL pipelines, dimensional modeling) or applied ML (computer vision). Experience building LLM‑powered features or platforms: LLM API integration (Anthropic/OpenAI), retrieval‑augmented generation, evals, or agent frameworks (e.g., MCP) — and shipping them to production responsibly. Interest in sports cards, gaming, or collectibles!

Collectors uses e‑Verify to validate your ability to work legally in the United States. We are aware that there are instances where individuals are receiving job offers that fraudulently allege to be from Collectors or one of our business units. This type of fraud can be carried out through false websites, through fake e‑mails claiming to be from the company or through social media. We never ask for personal information such as your bank account, Social Security numbers or National IDs, nor do we send or request payments for the purchase of business‑related equipment. If you suspect fraud, please reach out to [e-mail]. We are committed to equal employment opportunity regardless of race, color, ethnicity, ancestry, religion, national origin, gender, sex, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, age, citizenship, marital or parental status, disability, veteran status, or other class protected by applicable law. We believe that a team that represents a variety of backgrounds, perspectives, and skills will better service the diverse community of collectors we support. If you require an accommodation to apply or interview with us due to a disability or special need, please email [e-mail] U.S. residents: for disclosures relating to personal information we collect during the employment application and recruitment process, please see our Privacy Notice for U.S. Applicants.

Collectors is the leading creator of innovative technology that provides value-added services for collectors worldwide. We grade, authenticate, vault, and sell millions of record-setting collectibles, all while modernizing and digitalizing the process to further our mission of helping collectors pursue their passions. We’re always on the lookout for talented people to join our growing team. Our services span collectible trading cards, autographs, comic books, coins, video games, event tickets, and memorabilia. Our subsidiaries include PSA, PCGS, Beckett, SGC, and Card Ladder. Since our founding in 1986, we have graded and authenticated millions of items. We employ more than 3000 people across our headquarters in Santa Ana, California and offices in New Jersey, Texas, Florida, Japan, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Canada, Mexico, Germany, and France.