Job description

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. Job Summary Fanatics Betting & Gaming (FBG) is building the industry's most trusted, scalable, and fan-centric sportsbook experience. Our Internal Platforms power critical systems that support customer operations, marketing, support, risk, and data—through a combination of Java backend services, APIs, event-driven systems, and integrations with the SaaS and CRM platforms our business teams run on. We are seeking a Staff Java Software Engineer to set technical direction for the services and integrations that Internal Platforms runs on. This is a senior individual contributor role for an engineer who operates with minimal guidance, takes on our most complex and often cross-functional problems, and raises the bar for everyone around them. At this level, your impact is measured beyond the code you write. You will own architecture for significant parts of the platform, drive decisions that span multiple teams and systems, mentor other engineers, and partner directly with Product, Operations, Support, Marketing, Risk, and Data leadership to shape what gets built and why. You will still be hands-on—Staff engineers at FBG write and review code every week—but you will spend meaningful time on design, technical strategy, and multiplying the output of the teams you work with. You do not need to be a Salesforce specialist. Some of our systems integrate with Salesforce for CRM and workflow automation, so exposure to it is a nice to have—but we're hiring for strength in Java, distributed systems, and integration design, and we expect you to pick up the platform specifics on the job. Key Responsibilities Technical Leadership & Architecture (Primary Focus) Own the architecture for major services, integrations, and data flows within Internal Platforms, from problem definition through production operation. Lead design for complex, often cross-functional initiatives—defining the approach, surfacing trade-offs, and driving alignment across engineering teams and stakeholders. Break ambiguous, department-level problems into clear technical plans and workstreams that other engineers can execute against. Evaluate and select technologies, patterns, and vendors; know when a sophisticated design approach is warranted and when the simpler answer is the right one. Establish and evolve engineering standards for the team—API design, testing strategy, observability, deployment, and integration patterns—and get them adopted in practice, not just documented. Identify systemic technical debt and reliability risk across the platform, build the case for addressing it, and sequence the work alongside feature delivery. Hands-On Engineering Design, build, and maintain Java-based backend services (Spring Boot or similar frameworks) that are scalable, resilient, and well-tested. Take on the hardest technical problems on the team: high-throughput event processing, complex multi-system integrations, thorny data integrity issues, and production incidents that cross service boundaries. Diagnose problems at the root cause rather than the symptom, and translate what you learn into durable fixes and better instrumentation. Set the quality bar through your own code and through high-signal code reviews that teach as well as gate. Contribute to internal web applications and user interfaces backed by Java services where it moves the work forward. Mentorship & Force Multiplication Mentor and coach Senior and mid-level engineers through design review, pairing, and direct feedback; help them grow the judgment to handle complexity independently. Create learning and growth opportunities for teammates—delegate meaningful design work, sponsor stretch assignments, and share context generously. Onboard and ramp new engineers into the platform's systems and conventions. Write the documentation, runbooks, and design records that let the team operate and extend the platform without you in the room. Model an inclusive, collaborative environment where opposing views are actively invited and disagreement is resolved on the technical merits. Cross-Functional Partnership & Delivery Partner with Product Managers, Technical Program Managers, and business stakeholders to shape roadmaps—bringing technical feasibility, sequencing, and risk into the conversation early rather than reacting to finished requirements. Work directly with Marketing, Operations, Support, Risk, Compliance, and Data teams to ensure platform capabilities meet business needs and regulatory obligations across jurisdictions. Represent Internal Platforms in architecture and design discussions with other engineering teams, negotiating clean contracts and shared ownership boundaries. Communicate complex technical problems, trade-offs, and decisions clearly to both engineering and non-engineering audiences, including leadership. Drive predictable delivery for initiatives you own: scope, estimate, unblock, and own the outcome—including the parts that depend on other teams. Engage external partners and vendors on integration design and technical escalations where needed. Third-Party & SaaS Platform Integration Own the integration architecture between our Java services and the third-party platforms our business teams depend on—REST APIs, platform events, middleware—including data ownership, consistency, and failure handling. Define scalable, reusable integration patterns and prevent the platform sprawl that comes from point-to-point fixes. Lead resolution of complex integration issues spanning backend services, vendor platforms, and data pipelines. Partner with platform-specialist engineers (including our Salesforce-focused engineers) to keep integration boundaries clean and maintainable. Operational Excellence Own production health for the services in your remit: SLOs, alerting, on-call quality, incident response, and post-incident follow-through. Anticipate failure modes, capacity limits, and blockers before they surface, and build the safeguards in advance. Improve engineering practice across the team—CI/CD, test automation, release safety, and developer productivity. Hold the line on the standards required of a regulated, highly available gaming platform. Qualifications Required 8+ years of professional software engineering experience, with deep expertise in Java. Demonstrated ownership of the architecture and delivery of complex production systems, including work that spanned multiple teams or functions. Strong experience designing APIs and integrating distributed systems, with sound judgment about consistency, failure handling, and service boundaries. Track record of operating with minimal guidance: taking an ambiguous problem, defining the approach, and driving it to production. Experience mentoring engineers and raising technical standards on a team—through design review, code review, and direct coaching. Ability to communicate complex technical concepts and trade-offs clearly in writing and in person, to technical and non-technical audiences alike. Experience with Git-based workflows, code reviews, and CI/CD pipelines. Experience operating services in production, including on-call ownership and incident response. Preferred Experience with event-driven architectures (Kafka or similar) at meaningful scale. Experience in cloud environments (AWS preferred), including infrastructure-as-code. Experience with highly available or regulated systems (gaming, fintech, payments). Experience contributing to internal web UIs or tooling, including Java-backed web frameworks and/or modern front-end frameworks consuming Java APIs (React, Angular, etc.) Experience working with AI model or agent platforms, including building on or integrating agents into production workflows. Familiarity with platforms such as Anthropic, OpenAI, Amazon Bedrock, LangChain, Google Vertex AI, Microsoft Copilot Studio, CrewAI, or AutoGen is a plus. Fluency with AI-powered coding assistants to design, build, and test new functionality from the ground up—moving quickly while maintaining high code quality and test coverage—and interest in helping the broader team adopt these workflows effectively. Nice to Have Exposure to Salesforce as an integration target or platform—Salesforce APIs, platform events, or light development work in Apex, Lightning Web Components, or Flows. Helpful context, not a requirement. Salesforce certifications (Administrator, Developer). What We Value Passion for building high-quality internal platforms that directly impact business outcomes. Strong ownership mindset: you own the outcome, not just your piece of it. A solutions-first approach—you anticipate problems and bring options, not just escalations. Genuine interest in making other engineers better. Comfort operating in a fast-paced, evolving environment with incomplete information. 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 benefitsatfanatics.com Salary Range $1 — $1 USD By submitting your application, you agree to our terms of service and acknowledge you have read our Candidate Privacy Policy. Fanatics will never ask candidates for money, banking information, or other sensitive personal information as part of the interview process. If you receive a suspicious message claiming to be from Fanatics recruiting, please do not respond and report it here .

Requirements

Must-haves

Technical Leadership & Architecture (Primary Focus)
Own the architecture for major services, integrations, and data flows within Internal Platforms, from problem definition through production operation.
Lead design for complex, often cross-functional initiatives—defining the approach, surfacing trade-offs, and driving alignment across engineering teams and stakeholders.
Break ambiguous, department-level problems into clear technical plans and workstreams that other engineers can execute against.
Evaluate and select technologies, patterns, and vendors; know when a sophisticated design approach is warranted and when the simpler answer is the right one.
Establish and evolve engineering standards for the team—API design, testing strategy, observability, deployment, and integration patterns—and get them adopted in practice, not just documented.
Identify systemic technical debt and reliability risk across the platform, build the case for addressing it, and sequence the work alongside feature delivery.
Hands-On Engineering
Design, build, and maintain Java-based backend services (Spring Boot or similar frameworks) that are scalable, resilient, and well-tested.
Take on the hardest technical problems on the team: high-throughput event processing, complex multi-system integrations, thorny data integrity issues, and production incidents that cross service boundaries.
Diagnose problems at the root cause rather than the symptom, and translate what you learn into durable fixes and better instrumentation.
Set the quality bar through your own code and through high-signal code reviews that teach as well as gate.

Nice-to-haves

Experience with event-driven architectures (Kafka or similar) at meaningful scale.
Experience in cloud environments (AWS preferred), including infrastructure-as-code.
Experience with highly available or regulated systems (gaming, fintech, payments).
Experience contributing to internal web UIs or tooling, including Java-backed web frameworks and/or modern front-end frameworks consuming Java APIs (React, Angular, etc.)
Exposure to Salesforce as an integration target or platform—Salesforce APIs, platform events, or light development work in Apex, Lightning Web Components, or Flows. Helpful context, not a requirement.
Salesforce certifications (Administrator, Developer).
What We Value
Passion for building high-quality internal platforms that directly impact business outcomes.
Strong ownership mindset: you own the outcome, not just your piece of it.
A solutions-first approach—you anticipate problems and bring options, not just escalations.
Genuine interest in making other engineers better.
Comfort operating in a fast-paced, evolving environment with incomplete information.

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