Director of Engineering, The Athletic

$240-260k

PHP

React

AWS

JavaScript

GraphQL

Elasticsearch

iOS

Node.js

Android

Wordpress

MySQL

Apollo

Next.js

DynamoDB

Expert level

Remote from US

Subscription-based sports content publisher

Be an early applicant

Subscription-based sports content publisher

501-1000 employees

B2CPublishingContentSports

Be an early applicant

$240-260k

PHP

React

AWS

JavaScript

GraphQL

Elasticsearch

iOS

Node.js

Android

Wordpress

MySQL

Apollo

Next.js

DynamoDB

Expert level

Remote from US

501-1000 employees

B2CPublishingContentSports

Company mission

To produce smarter coverage for die-hard fans and redefine the way fans get access to sports content by flipping the normal model for sports journalism.

Job

Company

Role

Who you are

8+ years of experience managing an engineering team
Experience leading a team building both web and iOS/Android products
Direct experience scaling a small to medium/large team highly desired (but not required)
Experience with some portion of our tech stack, and an appetite to learn the remainder: Javascript (React, Next.js, Node.js, Apollo/GraphQL), PHP (Wordpress), MySQL/DynamoDB, ElasticSearch, AWS

What the job involves

We’re looking for an experienced engineering director to grow and lead our team of engineers working on our products. The team works closely with our other product teams, and we’re looking for an engineering leader who can excel at defining our strategy, translating that strategy into staffing and technical roadmaps, and then grow and manage the team to execute on those roadmaps
Your team will build across all our platforms, including web, iOS and Android. Your team of engineers will be working on every part of the stack: web, backend, API, database, analytics
You will be responsible for hiring additional engineers to fill out the team, with a focus on diversity and inclusion, and staffing and structuring your team to meet business needs
Manage your team and help them to deliver high-quality software in a fast-paced, agile, high-growth environment
Make technology, infrastructure, architectural, and hiring decisions to meet anticipated demands and scale
Evaluate trade-offs and effectively prioritize tasks within each team in alignment with strategic initiatives and company goals
Collaborate closely with product, design, editorial, data science, and marketing teams to define strategy and execute on roadmaps
Brainstorm new product ideas and improvements alongside the design and product teams while also delivering clean, performant code (this role has an expectation of staying close to the codebase)
Hold regular 1:1s, evaluate performance, and provide consistent productive feedback
Help engineers learn the skills needed to advance in their career
Work with engineers and product managers to iterate on and improve team processes and efficiency
Contribute to important company-wide initiatives like diversity and inclusion, technical brand, and hiring process

Our take

The Athletic provides authentic, in-depth coverage written by journalists who know the teams they write about inside out. Its model bucks the trend of traditional sports journalism outfits by asking for a subscription rather than relying on ad-revenue.

Despite initial doubts that users would be willing to pay for sports journalistic content, The Athletic has found significant success and was acquired by the New York Times in 2022. Despite it operating at a loss directly after the takeover, it was clear that the New York Times perceived this as a long-term investment.

In 2025, it was reported that The Athletic was now profitable, which aligns well with its parent's prediction of profitability within 4 years. This has been aided by accelerated customer growth alongside the rising trend of subscription-based sports news.

Kirsty

Company Specialist at Welcome to the Jungle

Insights

Top investors

20% female employees

8% employee growth in 12 months

Glassdoor (3.8)

Trustpilot (1.1)

Company

Funding (last 2 of 7 rounds)

Jan 2020

$50m

SERIES D

May 2019

$21.8m

SERIES C

Total funding: $139.7m

Company benefits

Paid Time Off
Paid Sick Leave
Paid Parental Leave
401 (k)
Short & Long Term Disability
Free Subscription
Competitive Health Care
HSA & FSA
Commuter Benefits

Company HQ

Financial District, San Francisco, CA

Leadership

Adam Hansmann

(President & Co-Founder)

Previously a McKinsey Business Analyst and then Associate at Calera Capital.

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