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Staff Platform Engineer, Data Storage - Core

New York, NY, United States

About Us

Fanatics is building a leading global digital sports platform. We ignite the passions of global sports fans and maximize the presence and reach for our hundreds of sports partners globally by offering products and services across Fanatics Commerce, Fanatics Collectibles, and Fanatics Betting & Gaming, allowing sports fans to Buy, Collect, and Bet. Through the Fanatics platform, sports fans can buy licensed fan gear, jerseys, lifestyle and streetwear products, headwear, and hardgoods; collect physical and digital trading cards, sports memorabilia, and other digital assets; and bet as the company builds its Sportsbook and iGaming platform. Fanatics has an established database of over 100 million global sports fans; a global partner network with approximately 900 sports properties, including major national and international professional sports leagues, players associations, teams, colleges, college conferences and retail partners, 2,500 athletes and celebrities, and 200 exclusive athletes; and over 2,000 retail locations, including its Lids retail stores. Our more than 22,000 employees are committed to relentlessly enhancing the fan experience and delighting sports fans globally. 

 

Platform Storage is a core platform engineering team specializing in stateful infrastructure (PostgreSQL/RDS, Kafka (MSK), MongoDB, DynamoDB, and Elasticache/Valkey) for Fanatics Betting & Gaming. We own database and streaming reliability for dozens of product engineering teams, acting as both platform builders and embedded technical partners. Our core toolset is Python, Terraform, and SQL, with a focus on self-service tooling, GitOps managed infrastructure, and hands-on ownership of production systems.

About the Role

Fanatics Betting & Gaming (FBG) is seeking a Staff Platform Storage Engineer to join our Platform Storage team, based in the United States. This role owns a critical slice of our core platform infrastructure,  including a portfolio of production PostgreSQL databases and our Kafka/MSK streaming platform,  and acts as the embedded platform liaison for the product teams built on top of them.

As a Staff Engineer, you will operate with a high degree of autonomy, leading complex database and streaming infrastructure initiatives, setting standards for reliability and performance, and acting as the go to technical resource for schema design, query performance, and incident response across the teams you support.

Responsibilities

  • Own database liaison responsibility for a portfolio of production PostgreSQL/RDS instances — query review, schema change approval, performance tuning, and incident triage for the teams built on top of them.
  • Operate and evolve our Kafka/MSK streaming platform: topic lifecycle management via GitOps, cluster health across environments, and CDC (Debezium) pipeline reliability.
  • Build and maintain self-service tooling that lets product teams provision database and streaming resources without a manual ticket queue.
  • Drive platform stability projects — operator/version upgrades, root-cause fixes for recurring operational issues, and proactive capacity/cost optimization across the database and streaming fleet.
  • Act as the technical escalation point for cross-team incidents where the root cause traces back to shared platform infrastructure (replication lag, connection exhaustion, CPU/throughput issues).
  • Represent Platform Storage in cross-org infrastructure initiatives and standardization efforts.
  • Mentor engineers and participate in on-call rotations.

What You Bring

  • Strong, hands-on Python — a primary tool of the role, not incidental. 5+ years using Python day-to-day is a strong signal.
  • 8+ years of experience in platform, infrastructure, or database engineering, with deep hands-on experience operating and running PostgreSQL (RDS) in production at scale — this is an infrastructure-ownership role, not an application-development role that happens to use Postgres.
  • Strong experience operating Kafka (MSK or self-managed) in production, including topic management and CDC/event-streaming pipelines.
  • Strong SQL fluency — comfortable diagnosing query performance issues and reviewing schema changes for teams you don't sit inside of.
  • Working knowledge of Infrastructure as Code (Terraform).
  • Experience owning production database reliability across multiple downstream teams simultaneously — able to prioritize across a portfolio, not just one system.
  • Strong cross-team communicator; this role is equal parts infrastructure engineering and technical partnership with the teams you support.

Nice to Have

  • Experience with GitOps-managed Kubernetes operators (Strimzi or equivalent) for stream infrastructure.
  • MongoDB or DynamoDB operational experience.
  • Experience with pgbouncer, connection pooling, and query-level performance diagnostics.
  • Prior work on platform cost optimization initiatives at multi-cluster scale.
  • Exposure to regulated or high-availability environments (gaming, fintech, or similar).

Who Thrives Here

  • Operates with a high degree of autonomy and ownership, leading complex initiatives with limited direction.
  • Comfortable influencing without authority and driving technical clarity in ambiguous problem spaces.
  • Communicates effectively across regions and time zones (US, UK, Ireland).
  • Cares about platform reliability, developer experience, and long-term system health.

Depending on the role, your interview and onboarding experience may include in-person components, such as onsite interviews or Launching into Better: LIVE—a multi-day cultural immersion in New York City for full-time, non-seasonal hires. These sessions are designed to build connection and bring our culture to life, though specific travel and participation requirements will be confirmed based on your role and location. Your recruiter will provide clear guidance at each stage of the process.

For information about our benefits, please visit https://benefitsatfanatics.com/

#LI-VG1

Ranges will change based on country and state of residence, which are reflected in Geographical Zones defined by Fanatics Betting and Gaming. The range incorporates all of our Geographical Compensation Zones and is subject to change as the Zone associated with the actual offer is confirmed. In addition to the base and bonus, full-time employment, and more. For information about our benefits, please visit https://benefitsatfanatics.com/

 

 

Salary Range

$172,800 - $216,000 USD

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Fanatics will never ask candidates for money, banking information, or other sensitive personal information as part of the interview process. If you receive a suspicious message claiming to be from Fanatics recruiting, please do not respond and report it here.

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