Senior Director of Software Engineering, Fanatics
$265-330k
SQL
React
CSS
TypeScript
GraphQL
iOS
Node.js
Android
Google Analytics
Splunk
Spark
Amplitude
Semantic
REST API
Datadog
Expert level
San Francisco Bay Area
3 days a week in office (San Mateo, CA)
Sports merchandise retailer
Be an early applicant
Sports merchandise retailer
1001+ employees
B2CRetailSportseCommerce
Be an early applicant
$265-330k
SQL
React
CSS
TypeScript
GraphQL
iOS
Node.js
Android
Google Analytics
Splunk
Spark
Amplitude
Semantic
REST API
Datadog
Expert level
San Francisco Bay Area
3 days a week in office (San Mateo, CA)
1001+ employees
B2CRetailSportseCommerce
Company mission
Fanatics' mission is to ignite and amplify the passion of global fans across their digital sports journey, and maximize the presence and reach for hundreds of partners worldwide.
Role
Who you are
- 15+ years of progressive experience in software engineering and engineering leadership, with at least 7 years dedicated to e-commerce or high-scale consumer applications, and significant time leading leaders (managing managers)
- Master's degree in Computer Science or a related technical field strongly preferred
- Frontend Expertise: Extensive hands-on experience and architectural leadership in modern frontend technologies: React, TypeScript, Node.js, ES6, modern CSS/tooling, and SSR. Demonstrated experience architecting Micro-Frontend systems and design systems at scale
- Backend Knowledge: Deep understanding of REST APIs, GraphQL, and service orchestration patterns, with experience designing and operating highly distributed Microservices architectures supporting consumer-scale traffic
- Platform Experience: Proven experience building, deploying, and optimizing both iOS and Android native or hybrid applications as part of an omni-platform storefront strategy
- AI/ML & Personalization: Experience leading initiatives involving Vector Databases, Recommendation Engines, semantic/vector search, and modern personalization platforms is strongly preferred. Direct experience with Google Vertex AI, OpenAI, or comparable platforms is a plus
- Data Acumen: High proficiency with product analytics platforms (e.g., Amplitude, GA4, Google Analytics) and a strong ability to use SQL for independent data investigation, reporting, and decision-making
- Operational Excellence: Experience owning production reliability for consumer-facing properties, including incident management, on-call programs, observability (Splunk, Datadog, or comparable), and peak-event readiness for major commercial moments
- Exceptional executive presence, stakeholder management, and communication skills, with the ability to translate complex technical concepts into business strategy for C-level audiences
- Proven track record of success as a senior technical leader with full-lifecycle ownership of a major domain, platform, or business line at a high-scale consumer company — ideally including a turnaround or significant performance step-change
- Strong belief in — and demonstrated success establishing — a culture where engineers are accountable for code quality, performance, reliability, and the end-to-end customer experience. Comfortable driving shift-left quality practices and mature SDLC
- Demonstrated experience hiring, growing, and scaling engineering organizations across international and remote locations, including building leadership benches in India and other global hubs
- Ability to operate as a senior leader who can manage multiple engineering domains simultaneously and meaningfully influence the broader organizational technology direction at Fanatics
- At Fanatics, we value transparency and honesty. If you don’t meet every single requirement, that’s okay – we still want to hear from you! We believe in the power of diverse experiences and talents. If you’re excited about the role and confident that you can contribute, don’t hesitate to apply. We’re genuinely interested in how your unique skills and perspective can help us build something amazing together
What the job involves
- In this role, you will define and execute the technical strategy that powers how millions of fans discover, evaluate, and choose from our catalog of over 5 million SKUs across more than a thousand websites — spanning marquee partner brands such as Fanatics, NFL Shop, MLB Shop, NBA Store, LIDS, Chelsea FC, and Fanatics International
- You will own the end-to-end Storefront pillar — from the Home Page, Top Navigation, and Branding, through Path-to-PDP discovery surfaces (Search, SRP, TLP, DLP, navigation, filtering), the Product Description Page (PDP), Direct-to-Item (DTI/Featured Product Pages), Made-to-Order (MTO/Digital Apparel customization), Pricing & Promo, and the Aspire Design System that unifies the experience across every brand we operate
- This is a strategic leadership role for a leader who is deeply invested in the modern e-commerce frontend stack, thrives on data-driven decision-making, and has a proven track record of building, turning around, and scaling world-class, globally distributed engineering organizations
- The Storefront pillar has tremendous strategic importance and provides significant opportunities to enhance the fan experience — we are looking for a leader who can raise the bar on technical execution, platform health, and conversion outcomes
- End-to-End Storefront Ownership: Own the full customer-facing storefront experience, including the Home Page, Top Nav & Branding, Path-to-PDP (Search, SRP, TLP, DLP, navigation, filtering, taxonomy), the Product Description Page (PDP), Direct-to-Item / Featured Product Pages, Made-to-Order (Digital Apparel/customization), Pricing & Promotional display, and the Aspire Design System. Drive the engineering execution for Search Relevancy, Merchandising, and Personalization engines that power these surfaces
- Technical Strategy & Platform Modernization: Define and lead the multi-year technical roadmap for the Storefront domain. Drive the modernization of our core storefront platform (Iris) toward a Micro-Frontend and Microservices ecosystem purpose-built for high-scale, global e-commerce traffic. Set the technical vision that balances velocity, quality, and long-term platform health
- AI/ML Integration: Champion the integration of modern Generative AI and Machine Learning capabilities (e.g., OpenAI, Google Vertex AI, Gemini, internal recommendation systems, vector databases) to power personalized discovery, intelligent search, conversational commerce, dynamic merchandising, conversion-optimized PDPs, and product recommendations across the storefront
- Performance, Quality & Site Reliability: Be accountable for the performance, quality, accessibility (WCAG/ADA), and user experience of the storefront across all platforms (Web, iOS, Android). Relentlessly optimize for speed and Core Web Vitals, and own peak readiness for marquee moments such as Super Bowl, NFL kickoff, March Madness, and major product drops. Own Storefront 24×7 on-call posture, incident response, and partner with SRE/SRO on platform resiliency
- Design System Leadership: Drive the adoption and evolution of the Aspire Design System across all brands and surfaces, ensuring a consistent, modern, and accessible experience while accelerating engineering velocity through shared, reusable components
- Data-Driven Development & Experimentation: Partner closely with Product, Design, and Data Science to leverage A/B testing frameworks (Spark/Lumen) and product analytics (Amplitude, GA4, internal tools) to define, measure, and optimize key business metrics (Conversion Rate, Search-to-Detail Rate, PDP Engagement, Add-to-Cart Rate, AOV, Core Web Vitals). Build an engineering culture of high-velocity, high-quality experimentation
- SEO & Multi-Brand Excellence: Ensure storefront pages (TLPs, DLPs, PDPs) are technically optimized for SEO, page speed, and structured data, while supporting multi-brand, multi-region (NA, UK, EU, FI), and multi-language requirements including GDPR-compliant consent and tracking
- Organizational Leadership: Build, mentor, grow, and empower a high-performing, globally distributed engineering organization spanning San Mateo, Boulder, Hyderabad, and nearshore contractors. Directly responsible for scaling the organization and growing leadership benches across all geographies
- Executive Influence: Operate as a key technical leader within the broader engineering organization, partnering with peer leaders across Cart-to-Care (Cart, Checkout, Payments, Order Management), Lifecycle (PIM, CRM, Marketing), Foundations (Platforms, Data, Reliability), and Mobile to shape Fanatics' overall commerce technology direction
Our take
Fanatics is a sports-based eCommerce company that offers teams and leagues a convenient online platform through which to sell licensed apparel and merchandise. As well as the Fanatics online store, it runs the online stores of dozens of teams and leagues including the MLB, NHL, NBA, and NASCAR. They've also signed a number of exclusive deals to become the sole vendors of officially licensed merch for top athletes across multiple leagues.
It operates using a Cloud Commerce sales system which tracks clicks and purchases on the site as well as sports and player news and updates to inform retail and marketing decisions in real time. The company was first established as Football Fanatics, a chain of bricks-and-mortar stores in malls across Florida. Since then, it has been bought out by GSI Commerce and expanded.
Looking ahead, while its commerce business remains its biggest source of revenue for now, Fanatics has expanded into livestreamed shopping around collectibles and trading cards, acquiring Tops and hiring Snap and Alphabet executive to launch this new business. It also has an NFT arm in Candy Digital, of which it’s the majority owner, as well as a fledgling betting and gaming division.
Kirsty
Company Specialist at Welcome to the Jungle
Insights
Top investors
20% employee growth in 12 months
Company
Funding (last 2 of 9 rounds)
Dec 2022
$700m
GROWTH EQUITY VC
Apr 2022
$1.5bn
GROWTH EQUITY VC
Total funding: $4.8bn
Company benefits
- At Fanatics we place our focus on results and empowerment and encourage you to enjoy your time on and OFF the field with our competitive time off policies
- Fanatics values our internal fans too! Our programs are designed to thank and reward Fanatics athletes for their hard work and commitment to winning as a team
- From breakfast to happy hour and every hour in between – Fanatics employees can enjoy time together at one of our many company events.
- As an employee you will receive a special discount on all of your favorite sports merchandise and memorabilia
- Fanatics cares about the fans around us. We encourage you to partner up with your teammates in giving back and serving the communities where we work and play
- You never know who will show up to the office. You might just meet one of your all-time favorite athletes
- Here at Fanatics we want you to accomplish your goals. We offer tuition reimbursement
- Fanatics cares about helping and supporting our teams in their busy lifestyles. Through wellness relationships with fitness and weight management partners we are here to support you in whatever your lifestyle goals
Company HQ
West Village, New York, NY
Leadership
Michael Rubin
(CEO)Michael founded GSI Commerce in 1998, before co-owning New Jersey Devils and Philadelphia 76ers since 2011. They also founded Fanatics in 2011 alongside roles at ShopRunner, Rue La La, Reform Alliance and Kynetic.
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