Staff Software Engineer – Backend

Job not on LinkedIn

September 17

🏄 California – Remote

Although this job is listed in California, this company may be open to hiring remote in other states.

🎰 Nevada – Remote

Although this job is listed in Nevada, this company may be open to hiring remote in other states.

+1 more states

🏄 California – Remote 🎰 Nevada – Remote ☕ Washington – Remote

💵 $225k - $300k / year

⏰ Full Time

🔴 Lead

🔙 Backend Engineer

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Sleeper

WebsiteLinkedInAll Job Openings

Gaming • Sports

Sleeper is a leading fantasy sports platform, offering a variety of fantasy games including Fantasy Football, Fantasy Basketball, and Fantasy League of Legends (LCS). With millions of users, Sleeper allows players to join leagues, draft teams, and compete in seasonal games. The platform offers popular game modes such as Redraft, Auction, and Dynasty, and is known for its engaging user experience across web, iPad, and mobile devices. Sleeper also features community-centric functionalities like chat channels and news alerts, making it a comprehensive platform for fantasy sports enthusiasts.

11 - 50 employees

🎮 Gaming

⚽ Sports

📋 Description

• Design and build core backend systems that power Sleeper's games and real-time user experiences—fantasy contests, Sleeper Picks, user profiles, leaderboards, and more. • Architect scalable, distributed systems capable of handling millions of concurrent users with low latency and high availability. • Lead backend initiatives from concept to deployment, ensuring clean interfaces, well-documented services, and resilient infrastructure. • Optimize system performance and proactively address bottlenecks through monitoring, profiling, and capacity planning. • Collaborate cross-functionally with product, design, and frontend teams to deliver features that users love. • Mentor engineers, provide thoughtful code reviews, and shape backend engineering best practices and standards. • Drive innovation, technical direction, and team culture as a key engineering voice at the leadership level.

🎯 Requirements

• 7+ years of backend software engineering experience, including experience in staff-level or tech lead roles. • Proven ability to design and scale distributed systems that serve millions of users in real-time or gaming environments. • Strong proficiency in one or more backend languages (e.g., Go, Python, Node.js, Java), and an understanding of trade-offs between them. • Deep knowledge of databases (both SQL and NoSQL), caching strategies, and message queues (e.g., Kafka, RabbitMQ, Pub/Sub). • Comfortable designing and maintaining RESTful and/or graphql APIs, data models, and internal tooling. • Cloud experience (AWS, GCP, or similar), with familiarity with containers (Docker) and orchestration (Kubernetes a plus). • Strong product mindset—you care about the why, not just the how, and you build with users in mind. • Excellent communication and collaboration skills. You elevate your teammates and enjoy mentoring. • Bonus: Passion for sports, gaming, or building multiplayer or real-time systems.

🏖️ Benefits

• Competitive salary ($225,000–$300,000/year not inclusive of stock options and benefits) • Equity • Comprehensive medical, dental, and vision insurance • 401(k) with company matching • Generous PTO and flexible remote work policy • Opportunities for fast career growth in a high-impact role • A small, focused team where your contributions truly matter