Senior Software Engineer (Backend)

About Fanatics

JOB DESCRIPTION At Fanatics Commerce, we’re more than just a leader in licensed sports merchandise – we’re a team united by a relentless passion for our fans and a commitment to innovation. We live by our BOLD Leadership principles: We Build Championship Teams, we’re Obsessed with Fans, we embrace a Limitless Entrepreneurial Spirit, and we approach every challenge with a Determined and Relentless Mindset. If you’re ready to contribute to a dynamic, fast-paced environment that thrives on collaboration and growth, we want you to be part of our team.

Role Overview As a Senior Software Engineer – Full Stack, you will lead the design and development of scalable, high-performance systems that power critical commerce and marketing capabilities at Fanatics. This role is primarily backend-driven, with ownership of API design, distributed systems, data integrations, and cloud-native services, while also contributing to frontend experiences built with React. You will work across the stack to deliver reliable, performant, and maintainable solutions that directly impact the fan experience. This position requires strong backend architecture expertise combined with the ability to contribute effectively to modern UI development when needed.

How You Will Make An Impact Own High-Impact Systems End-to-End

• Lead the design and delivery of backend-driven, full-stack features that power critical commerce and marketing workflows.
• Own services from architecture to production to ongoing optimization.
• Ensure systems scale reliably during high-traffic events and peak fan engagement moments.

Architect for Scale, Reliability & Performance

• Design distributed systems and APIs with clear tradeoffs across latency, consistency, cost, and resiliency.
• Proactively identify bottlenecks and scaling limits before they impact customers.
• Build observability into systems (metrics, tracing, logging) to support operational excellence.

Drive Technical Direction

• Lead technical design reviews and influence architectural decisions beyond your immediate squad.
• Raise engineering standards around testing, code quality, documentation, and system reliability.
• Modernize legacy components where needed to improve performance and maintainability.

Improve Engineering Velocity

• Strengthen CI/CD pipelines and deployment practices.
• Reduce cycle time through automation, better tooling, and pragmatic technical decisions.
• Leverage AI tools thoughtfully to increase development efficiency and code quality.

Elevate the Team

• Mentor engineers through design discussions and code reviews.
• Foster a culture of accountability, ownership, and high standards.
• Partner closely with Product, Design, and Data to translate ambiguous requirements into scalable technical solutions.what you bring to the team:

What You Bring To The Table Technical Depth

• 7+ years building and operating production-grade software systems.
• Deep expertise in Go or Java, with strong understanding of concurrency, performance tuning, and system design.
• Proven experience designing distributed systems and scalable APIs in high-traffic environments.
• Strong database fundamentals (relational and/or NoSQL), including schema design and query optimization.
• Hands-on experience building cloud-native systems in AWS (EC2, Lambda, S3, etc.).

Full-Stack Capability

• Practical experience contributing to React-based frontend applications.
• Solid understanding of API contracts, state management, and frontend performance optimization.
• Ability to debug and resolve issues across the stack.

Architectural Judgment

• Strong understanding of distributed systems tradeoffs and backend scalability patterns.
• Experience making pragmatic tradeoffs between speed and long-term maintainability.
• Ability to operate effectively in ambiguous problem spaces.

Execution & Collaboration

• Track record of independently leading medium-to-large technical initiatives.
• Strong communication skills and experience working cross-functionally.
• Experience in Agile environments delivering iterative, production-ready solutions.

Nice To Have

• Experience in high-traffic consumer or e-commerce platforms
• Experience working with design systems
• Exposure to marketing technology or data-driven platforms

Don’t Check Every Box? That’s Okay. At Fanatics, we value transparency, ownership, and diverse perspectives. You don’t need to meet every single requirement to apply. If you’re excited about the role, thrive in high-impact environments, and believe you can raise the bar - we want to hear from you. We’re building championship teams, and that means hiring people with different experiences, ideas, and strengths who are united by a relentless focus on the fan.

What’s In It For You Culture Join a team where you're surrounded by top-tier talent, driven by a shared passion to relentlessly enhance the fan experience. With a focus on collaboration, support, and continuous development, you’ll be empowered to help shape our culture that celebrates both individual and team successes.