This is a “build the engine while the stadium is full” kind of role. Sleeper wants a staff-level backend leader who can architect and scale core systems for fantasy and DFS, handle real-time workloads, and mentor other engineers while the product keeps growing.
About Sleeper
Sleeper is a sports games platform built around community and real-time interaction, spanning fantasy leagues, pick’em contests, and DFS. They run lean, obsess over UX, and are backed by major investors (Andreessen Horowitz, General Catalyst, Expa). They’re scaling to serve tens of millions of sports fans.
Schedule
• Full-time
• Remote-friendly (preference for SF Bay Area, Los Angeles, NYC, or Pacific Northwest)
• High-ownership, fast-moving engineering culture
What You’ll Do
⦁ Design and build backend systems powering real-time sports experiences: fantasy contests, Sleeper Picks, profiles, leaderboards, and more.
⦁ Architect scalable distributed systems built for low latency and high availability with millions of concurrent users.
⦁ Lead initiatives end-to-end, from concept through deployment, with clean interfaces and resilient services.
⦁ Optimize performance through monitoring, profiling, and capacity planning, and proactively remove bottlenecks.
⦁ Collaborate with product, design, and frontend to ship features users actually feel.
⦁ Mentor engineers, give high-quality code reviews, and raise the bar on backend standards and best practices.
⦁ Drive technical direction and engineering culture as a key leadership voice.
What You Need
⦁ 7+ years backend engineering experience, including staff-level or tech lead ownership.
⦁ Track record scaling distributed systems in real-time, gaming, or similarly demanding environments.
⦁ Strong proficiency in at least one backend language (Go, Python, Node.js, Java, etc.) and good judgment on tradeoffs.
⦁ Deep database knowledge (SQL + NoSQL), caching strategies, and message queues (Kafka, RabbitMQ, Pub/Sub).
⦁ Experience designing REST and/or GraphQL APIs, data models, and internal tooling.
⦁ Cloud experience (AWS/GCP/etc.), plus containers (Docker) and orchestration (Kubernetes is a plus).
⦁ Product mindset and strong communication, with a real love for mentoring.
⦁ Bonus: Passion for sports, gaming, multiplayer, or real-time systems.
Benefits
⦁ $225,000 to $300,000 base salary (not including equity).
⦁ Equity.
⦁ Medical, dental, and vision insurance.
⦁ 401(k) with company matching.
⦁ Generous PTO and flexible remote work policy.
⦁ Fast growth potential in a small, high-impact team.
Straight talk: this role is for someone who enjoys being accountable for performance and reliability at scale, not just writing features. If you like owning systems, setting standards, and making the platform faster and more resilient, this is a big swing.
Happy Hunting,
~Two Chicks…