Base Salary
$225k - $300k/yr
Responsibilities
- Design and build backend systems for fantasy contests, Sleeper Picks, user profiles, leaderboards, and real-time user experiences.
- Architect distributed systems that support millions of concurrent users with low latency and high availability.
- Lead backend initiatives from concept through deployment, including service interfaces, documentation, and resilient infrastructure.
- Optimize performance and address bottlenecks through monitoring, profiling, and capacity planning.
- Collaborate with product, design, and frontend teams to deliver user-focused features.
- Mentor engineers, conduct code reviews, and establish backend engineering standards and best practices.
- Drive technical direction, innovation, and engineering culture as a leadership-level contributor.
Requirements
- At least 7 years of backend software engineering experience, including staff-level or tech lead experience.
- Experience designing and scaling distributed systems for millions of users in real-time or gaming environments.
- Strong proficiency in one or more backend languages, including Go, Python, Node.js, or Java, with the ability to evaluate language trade-offs.
- Deep knowledge of SQL and NoSQL databases, caching strategies, and message queues such as Kafka, RabbitMQ, or Pub/Sub.
- Experience designing and maintaining RESTful or GraphQL APIs, data models, and internal tooling.
- Cloud experience with AWS, GCP, or similar platforms, plus familiarity with Docker and preferably Kubernetes.
- Strong product mindset, communication, collaboration, and mentoring skills.
- Elixir proficiency and experience with sports, gaming, multiplayer, or real-time systems are bonuses.
Benefits
- Competitive base salary of $225,000–$300,000 per year, excluding stock options and benefits.
- Equity, comprehensive medical, dental, and vision insurance, and a 401(k).
- Generous paid time off and a flexible remote work policy.
- Opportunities for rapid career growth, high ownership, and impact on a platform serving millions of users.
- Remote-friendly location, with preference for candidates in the San Francisco Bay Area, Los Angeles, New York City, or the Pacific Northwest.
Tech Stack
Categories
About Sleeper
Sleeper's mission is to connect people over sports. We're building a digital playground for sports fans and their friends to hang out together. We believe what truly makes sports so special in our lives is its ability to strengthen bonds between the people we care about. Some of our fondest memories include super bowl parties with friends, streaming the world cup with co-workers, and enjoying Christmas NBA games with family. Our products enable you and your friends to enjoy sports together in a fun and social way, creating bonds that can span a lifetime. ****Sleeper has been made aware of a recruiting scam falsely using the Sleeper brand name and that of of our HR Manager, Amanda Lopez, in an effort to exploit job seekers. Scammers are exploiting the Sleeper logo and utilizing fraudulent email addresses to deceive individuals into believing they are applying for or being offered positions at Sleeper. These scams can be highly convincing, with fraudsters often requesting personal information or offering fake job opportunities in exchange for sensitive personal and financial details. Please note, Sleeper will never ask applicants for money or extend a job offer without conducting a verbal or video interview via Google Meet. If you are interested in applying for a job at Sleeper, please visit our website at Sleeper.com or https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/sleeper. If you suspect you've encountered a recruiting scam, please report it to the FTC at this link: https://consumer.ftc.gov/articles/job-scams ****