Director of Engineering

ENGINEERING MANAGER – HANDS-ON JAVA BACKEND (70–80% CODING)

Manhattan, NY · Hybrid, 4 days onsite · $160,000–$180,000 base + 12–25% annual bonus

Java · MySQL · Hibernate / Apache Cayenne · REST API design · OpenAPI · AWS

Our Sports & Entertainment client builds the platform that puts live game data in front of millions of fans. They're hiring an Engineering Manager to lead their backend team, and this is a hands-on role. You'll spend 70–80% of your time writing Java, designing APIs and modeling data. The rest goes to mentoring a small team of backend engineers and, as headcount allows, growing that team.

If you've moved into leadership and miss the code, or you're a Principal or Staff Engineer ready to lead without giving up the keyboard, this is built for you.

THE COMPANY

An established sports and entertainment organization with more than 1,500 employees. The digital products team owns the consumer website and the data services behind it, delivering stats, scores and live game information to fans, partners and teams.

The work is unusual. Real-time tracking and sensor data flows in during every game, and this team builds the APIs that connect it to everything else. On game nights, traffic reaches the millions.

The engineering group has a front-end team and a backend team. You'll lead the backend team, which today is three engineers who will report to you.

WHAT YOU'LL DO

• Design and build high-performance, scalable backend services and RESTful APIs in Java

• Own pre-game, in-game and post-game data distribution: feeds, endpoints and the infrastructure that supports them

• Build APIs on top of real-time tracking and sensor data

• Design relational schemas and tune MySQL queries for high-traffic, consumer-facing workloads

• Build internal tools and support front-facing products

• Define API design standards for the team, including versioning, backward compatibility, OpenAPI specifications and caching strategy

• Mentor three backend engineers through code review, pairing and design discussions

• Scale the backend team as headcount grows

WHAT THEY'RE LOOKING FOR

• Strong, current hands-on Java. You're writing production code today, not reviewing it from a distance

• 8+ years of backend development, with at least 3 focused on REST API design

• Deep relational data modeling and SQL skills. MySQL preferred; you should be comfortable designing schemas and tuning queries in real time

• Hands-on experience with Hibernate or Apache Cayenne ORM

• Experience mentoring engineers. People management is welcome but not required, and Principal and Staff Engineers are encouraged to apply

• Authorization to work in the US. Visa sponsorship is not available

NICE TO HAVE

• Python

• AWS: S3, Kinesis, DynamoDB

• JAX-RS, Jackson, Maven, Bamboo

• Agrest or Apache Cayenne specifically

• OAuth 2.0 and SAML

• CDN caching and optimization (e.g., Cloudflare)

• Flink, Spark or event-driven architectures

• Docker and Kubernetes

• Open-source contributions

• A genuine love of sports

WHO THRIVES HERE

This is a close team. People enjoy coming into the office, and many have built long careers here. They're looking for someone who likes being in the code. Candidates who have drifted too far from hands-on work have struggled in the process, and so have candidates who can't reason through a data model on the spot. You'll be the person your engineers come to when they're stuck, so patience and a willingness to teach matter as much as technical depth. The calendar has a rhythm: summers and the start of the season are busy. The rest of the year offers a quality of life that finance and Big Tech rarely match. A personal connection to sports goes a long way.

THE INTERVIEW PROCESS

• 30-minute introductory call

• 1.5-hour technical discussion on Zoom with the hiring manager and senior engineers, covering backend and database concepts in depth

• Onsite visit to meet the wider engineering group and leadership

WHY JOIN?

• Work on live sports data and real-time systems you won't find anywhere else

• High-visibility work that millions of fans see every game

• Room to build: you'll shape how the backend team grows

• Stability: an organization where people stay for years

BENEFITS

• Health coverage valued at about $30,000/year; top-tier family coverage costs about $170/month

• 401(k) with a 2.5% employer match after 12 months

• A separate employer-funded savings plan (6–9% employer contribution based on age, 5-year vest) that you don't contribute to

• Annual bonus based on individual, department and organizational performance, consistently paid out for decades

• Generous PTO and 12 weeks of paid childcare leave

COMPENSATION

Base salary: $160,000–$180,000

Annual bonus: 12–25%