Lead Full Stack Engineer, Vivid Seats
$150-190k
+ Annual Bonus
SQL
React
TypeScript
Python
Scala
Java
Node.js
Spring
Next.js
Senior and Expert level
Chicago
Tue-Thur in-office
3+ days a week in office
Ticket exchange and resale platform
Be an early applicant
Ticket exchange and resale platform
501-1000 employees
B2CMarketplaceEntertainmentEvents
Be an early applicant
$150-190k
+ Annual Bonus
SQL
React
TypeScript
Python
Scala
Java
Node.js
Spring
Next.js
Senior and Expert level
Chicago
Tue-Thur in-office
3+ days a week in office
501-1000 employees
B2CMarketplaceEntertainmentEvents
Company mission
To empower every fan to get to the live events that shape their most vivid moments and memories.
Role
Who you are
- 8+ years of professional experience building and supporting production web applications, including time spent leading technical initiatives that span multiple engineers or teams
- Demonstrated experience working in and improving codebases with significant history and meaningful business impact - with genuine enthusiasm for that kind of work. You see legacy code as a puzzle to learn and an opportunity to leave better than you found it
- Deep experience with modern front-end technologies such as TypeScript, Next.js, and React, and how they interact with APIs at scale
- Strong experience designing, building, and operating web-based, distributed, and multi-tier architectures using Java/Spring or other major tech stacks (Python, Node, Scala, etc.)
- A track record of designing, building, and evolving web services, APIs, and partner-facing integrations that other teams or external systems depend on
- Comfort with the operational realities of distributed systems: batch and event-driven jobs, retry and idempotency, consistency between systems of record, and partner SLAs
- Experience mentoring and growing senior engineers, coaching them through unfamiliar parts of a codebase and helping build skill and confidence
- Strong written and interpersonal communication skills for documentation, sharing best practices, and discussing engineering topics with non-engineering partners
- Preferred knowledge of Service Oriented Architecture, PCI, and SQL
- Experience with high-volume, latency-sensitive e-commerce, marketplace, or distribution systems is a strong plus
- A proactive mindset toward embracing, experimenting, and integrating AI tools to drive efficiency, elevating your work and your team’s work, and contribute to a culture of innovation
- We are an equal opportunity employer that values the critical importance of a diverse workforce and sense of belonging. Many of our roles have flexible requirements and we encourage you to apply regardless of whether you meet every qualification
What the job involves
- As a Lead Full Stack Software Engineer on the Distribution team, you'll set the technical direction for the systems powering our partnership platforms - a critical revenue channel for the business
- You’ll make highly visible enhancements to our platform by maintaining and also building new features across our stack
- Our teams work with a variety of applications that enable us to sell tickets, manage inventory, support our partnerships, and provide a great customer experience from the website to the box office
- Following development best practices, you’ll be responsible for developing solutions that scale to the needs of our customers and partners
- Lead the design, technical direction, and long-term modernization of the Distribution platform - the services, jobs, and integrations that sync inventory, pricing, and orders with our partners, and the patterns the team will build on for years
- Take deep ownership of our existing Distribution systems: build a thorough understanding of how they work today, why they were built that way, and where they’re heading
- Set the bar for development, quality and operational excellence, and participate in the team’s on-call rotation
- Grow other engineers through pairing, code reviews, tech talks, and influence who joins the team through interviews and onboarding
- 30 Days In:
- Complete new hire orientation, gaining the resources you need to be successful
- Learn how ticket marketplaces operate, how Distribution fits into Vivid Seats’ business, and who our key partners are
- Acclimate to team and company norms, business objectives, and Vivid Seats values
- Build a working map of the Distribution stack - the services, jobs, data stores, and partner integrations the team owns, including legacy systems
- Deploy and make changes to our production systems, and start building relationships with peers across engineering, product, partner ops, and business
- 90 Days In:
- Own significant pieces of the Distribution architecture and drive improvements to our processes, methods, and technologies in support of business goals, making pragmatic trade-offs between modernization and short-term delivery
- Become the go-to person for how our Distribution systems behave - their history, edge cases, and the safe, confident ways to change them
- Lead team planning, estimations, and design sessions, and represent Distribution’s technical position in broader engineering forums
- Establish a mindset of continuous experimentation on the team and measurably improve delivery efficiency across both modern and long-standing parts of the stack
- Partner with cross-functional stakeholders to decompose internal and partner objectives into iterative, shippable plans
- Produce and deliver clean, quality code on critical paths, and raise the bar on code review and design review across the team
- 180 Days In:
- Use application observability to identify areas for improvement before they become problems for our partners, and coach the team to do the same
- Be the technical owner for all applications in Distribution’s scope, with deep self-sufficiency and a clear point of view on where each is headed
- Drive a multi-quarter technical roadmap for Distribution - covering both new capabilities and the legacy systems we need to evolve, replace, or retire - that ladders up to company and department goals
- Identify systemic areas of opportunity in the platform and communicate the impact to stakeholders and leadership
- Actively grow the engineers on your team - own development plans alongside their managers, and visibly raise the technical ceiling of the group, especially in their ability to work confidently across the full Distribution stack
Our take
Founded in 2001, Vivid Seats is one of the leading online ticket marketplaces. The event tickets market is one of the biggest out there, expected to reach almost $85 billion by 2027, and the company has secured its place within it with partnerships with big players like ESPN, RollingStone, and the NBA.
The company's strategy has so far been based on massive public exposure through heavy spending on digital advertising, which has brought it great success to date. Its connects millions of buyers with thousands of ticket sellers each year, covering hundreds of thousands of different events.
Vivid Seats boasts high revenues and sustained growth, and went public in 2021. Following its listing on the NASDAQ, the company has been focusing on expanding operations and broadening its tech capabilities. A recent development is the company's Vivid Picks app, which combines live event and gaming experiences to target changing trends in the events ticket space.
Kirsty
Company Specialist at Welcome to the Jungle
Insights
42% employee growth in 12 months
Company
Funding (last 2 of 3 rounds)
May 2014
$5.2m
SERIES A
Mar 2012
$3.9m
ANGEL
Total funding: $9.7m
Company benefits
- The Basics: We’ve got you covered with a variety of health, dental and vision packages to meet your needs: BCBS PPO, HSA and HMO plans, mental health and telehealth programs.
- Your Future: We care about what’s ahead for you. From competitive retirement and savings programs, to continuing education opportunities, and rewarding performance incentives, our goal is to grow your future in meaningful and sustainable ways.
- Recharge: We know employees who refresh, restore, and take time for life’s significant moments enjoy their work and are more productive. PTO, mental health days, and maternity/paternity policies give you the flexibility to make the most of your planned time off.
- Winning Together: We celebrate wins and stay connected as a team. Our teams are recognized in company-wide town-halls, hackathons, and product demos and enjoy in-office happy hours, holiday and summer events, and company sponsored sports leagues and competitions.
- Health = Happy: We are committed to a healthy lifestyle. We cover gym membership fees, host wellness weeks, provide plenty of nutritious snacks, cater smart choice lunches, provide access to on-site treadmill desks, bike storage, fitness classes, and inspiring office spaces where mindfulness can thrive.
- Convenient: We make work a little easier, providing hybrid working arrangements at accessible office locations. When you are in the office, you’ll have the tools (company provided laptops, monitors, software), room for ideas (open floorplan with plenty of meeting rooms, quiet areas, and whiteboards), and coffee. We’re talking good coffee.
Company HQ
West Loop Gate, Chicago, IL
Leadership
Stan Chia
(CEO)Board Director at 1871, and Board Member at the Georgia Institute of Technology. Former COO of GrubHub.
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