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Senior Software Engineer – Backend/Kotlin

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Remote from
USA
Salary
USD 121k–200k / yr
Employment
Full Time
Experience
Senior
Published
Apply before
7 Nov 2026
Listing views
27
Application actions
1
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AI Summary

The role, at a glance.

Fanatics is seeking a Senior Backend Software Engineer to build, test, deploy, and operate scalable distributed systems for the Fanatics App. The role centers on Kotlin/Java and Spring development, with emphasis on sound architecture, observability, production quality, and operational excellence. The engineer will participate in design and planning, code reviews, on-call troubleshooting, and cross-functional technology decisions. This senior-level position also includes mentoring junior engineers and improving engineering practices in a fast-moving sports platform environment.

Role DNA

A quick view of the complexity, pace, ownership and collaboration implied by the job description.

Job Complexity

5/5
EasyHard

Pace & Pressure

5/5
RelaxedFast-paced

Autonomy Level

4/5
GuidedFull ownership

Communication Load

5/5
IndependentCollaborative
AI insightThis is a senior engineering role requiring 5+ years of experience with high-scale distributed backend systems, architectural patterns, and production operations. The fast-changing environment, on-call participation, technical leadership, and cross-functional alignment raise the complexity beyond individual feature delivery.

Salary analysis

Estimated compensation compared with the broader US market for similar roles.

Estimated job medianMarket rate
$160,500
US market range$125k–$210k
AI insightThe disclosed base salary range is $121,000–$200,000 USD, with a midpoint of $160,500 yearly. This is broadly competitive for a US senior backend engineer working with Kotlin/Java, distributed systems, cloud-native tooling, and operational responsibilities; the market range shown is an estimated US base-salary benchmark and excludes bonus and equity.

Core skills

Skills and capabilities most closely associated with this opportunity.

Sample interview questions
How would you design a scalable backend service for a high-traffic live sports feature?

I would begin by clarifying traffic patterns, latency targets, consistency needs, failure modes, and data ownership. I would use independently scalable services, caching where appropriate, asynchronous messaging for noncritical workflows, and observability from the outset. I would also define load-testing, degradation, and incident-response strategies before production launch.

Describe how you apply hexagonal or layered architecture in a Kotlin/Spring application.

I keep core domain logic independent of delivery mechanisms and infrastructure concerns. Interfaces define ports for persistence, messaging, and external services, while Spring-managed adapters implement those ports. This makes business logic easier to test, supports technology changes, and prevents framework details from spreading through the domain layer.

What observability practices do you consider essential for distributed systems?

I implement structured logs with correlation IDs, service-level metrics tied to user-impacting objectives, dashboards, actionable alerts, and distributed tracing across synchronous and asynchronous boundaries. I also ensure runbooks link common alert conditions to investigation steps and remediation options. Observability should enable engineers to understand both system health and individual request behavior.

How would you handle duplicate or out-of-order events from Kafka or Amazon SQS?

I would design consumers to be idempotent using stable event identifiers, deduplication records, or state transitions that safely tolerate retries. Where ordering matters, I would partition by the relevant entity key and make ordering assumptions explicit. Failed messages would use retry policies, dead-letter handling, monitoring, and a documented replay process.

How do you mentor engineers while maintaining delivery momentum?

I use design reviews, pairing, concise feedback in pull requests, and clear examples of engineering standards rather than taking over work. I match support to the engineer’s experience level, explain the tradeoffs behind decisions, and create opportunities for ownership. This improves capability while keeping priorities and delivery expectations transparent.

This analysis is generated from the job description. Salary estimates, role characteristics and sample answers are guidance, not employer-provided facts.
Opportunity details

About this role.

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.

Overview

As a Backend Engineer at Fanatics Core, you’ll design, develop, test, and maintain scalable, high-quality systems to deliver exceptional customer experiences. We own the Fanatics App, the brand-forward application of Fanatics that encompasses elements of all of our different brands and businesses.

We own the Fanatics App, the mobile app at Fanatics that encompasses elements from all of our different brands and businesses. The Fanatics App brings together Free to Play games, live events, ecommerce, and new product experiences to deliver a best-in-class Sports platform. Fundamentally, we are one team in everything we do, from the user experience to coding and architecture. We aim to deliver on our Customer Promise by delighting our millions of monthly active users.

Responsibilities

  • Develop, test, document, and deploy high quality software into production
  • Build features and tools that you and your team use
  • Participate in the on-call rotation when needed to troubleshoot software issues
  • Escalate when tasks or projects hit roadblocks
  • Participate in code reviews to maintain code quality and share knowledge
  • Contribute to team planning and design discussions, building more expertise around design approaches
  • Impact software quality and customer experience of product features
  • Improve testability, operational excellence metrics, and team documentation
  • Help your team define and adhere to the principles, guidelines, and best practices of our engineering strategy
  • Develop a fundamental understanding of our industry, product, feature set and roadmap
  • Work closely with our product team and other internal stakeholders to make technology decisions that grow and improve our products
  • Help to onboard and mentor junior engineers and interns
  • Remain current on the latest technologies and trends in software development
  • Must be open to occasional travel to Fanatics offices and other locations for conferences, events, meetings, and team-building activities

Required Qualifications

  • 5+ years of experience building highly scalable, performant and evolvable backend distributed systems; proficiency in Spring with Kotlin and/or Java is a plus.
  • Demonstrated ability to drive best practices in backend development and mentor others in effective coding and architectural strategies, such as clean code, hexagonal/layered architectures, domain driven design and other design and architectural patterns
  • Knowledge of observability practices, including logging, monitoring, and tracing in distributed systems.
  • Expertise in Agile software delivery, with a track record of modeling and driving process improvements across teams, and ability to collaborate cross-functionally across diverse teams within large enterprise environments, driving alignment and shared success.
  • Excellent communication skills, capable of conveying complex technical concepts clearly and effectively to diverse audiences, including engineers, executives, and non-technical stakeholders.
  • Team-first mentality, with a willingness to do what it takes to get the job done and a desire to strive for better.
  • Thrives in a high-growth environment where priorities evolve regularly and decisions are made quickly.

Preferred Qualifications

  • Strong Experience in the sports industry, gaming and content delivery
  • Highly effective with Kotlin, Java and/or Go
  • Expertise in messaging technologies such as Kafka or Amazon SQS, with a solid understanding of event-driven architectures.
  • Comfortable working with Cloud Native and Infrastructure as Code, like Kubernetes, Helm and Terraform
  • Ability to work in diverse codebases, both legacy and greenfield, in different languages and environments

If you possess some of these qualifications but not all of them, we still encourage you to apply!

#LI-AC2

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 https://benefitsatfanatics.com/

Salary Range

$121,000—$200,000 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.

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