Software Backend Engineer

Join Sleeper, a leading platform in fantasy sports and daily fantasy sports (DFS). As a Software Backend Engineer, you will build and own critical backend services, collaborate with fellow engineers, and contribute to the performance, scalability, and reliability of our systems. You will design and build core backend systems, optimize system performance, and collaborate cross-functionally to deliver features that users love. Enjoy benefits such as unlimited vacations, 401k and health insurance, company-sponsored fantasy leagues, team outings, and regular virtual game-time with the team.

• Design and build core backend systems that power Sleeper's games and real-time user experiences, ensuring scalability and reliability.
• Own backend initiatives from concept to deployment, ensuring clean interfaces, well-documented services, and resilient infrastructure.
• Collaborate cross-functionally with product, design, and frontend teams to deliver features that users love, contributing to code reviews and backend engineering best practices.
• Proven ability to build and scale distributed systems that serve millions of users in real-time or gaming environments
• 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 proficiency in one or more backend languages (e.g., Go, Python, Node.js, Java), and an understanding of trade-offs between them
• Bonus: Passion for sports, gaming, or building multiplayer or real-time systems
• Bonus: Proficiency in Elixir
• Excellent communication and collaboration skills
• Strong product mindset—you care about the why, not just the how, and you build with users in mind
• 3+ years of backend software engineering experience
• Solid knowledge of databases (both SQL and NoSQL), caching strategies, and message queues (e.g., Kafka, RabbitMQ, Pub/Sub)