Lead Software Engineer, Collector Engagement Team

Fanatics Collectibles · Mexico City

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.

About the Team

Fanatics Collectibles is the home of sports cards, trading cards, and collectibles for over 100 million fans worldwide. As part of the global Fanatics platform, we're rebuilding how collectors discover, buy, sell, and experience their hobby with world class technology and product experiences.

As part of Fanatics Collectibles’ continued global growth, we are establishing a new technology hub in Mexico City focused on operational excellence, platform scalability, trust, and customer experience. This team partners closely with Customer Experience (CX), Trust & Safety, Fraud Prevention, Payments, and Financial Operations organizations to build scalable systems and operational tooling that support millions of users and transactions globally.

About Topps Collector Engagement

Topps is transforming the trading card from a physical product into a connected collector experience. Through scanning, digital claiming, progression programs and partner activations, collectors can authenticate, track, unlock and redeem against the cards they own — bridging the physical product and the digital collector account.

Our Collector Engagement team builds that technology layer. The team delivers progression and quest experiences, redemption and reward mechanics, leaderboards, retail and live-event check-ins, in-venue collector moments, and the integrations that turn a scanned card into an account-level event. Programs launch against a calendar set by card releases and sports moments, so the team builds reusable platform capability rather than one-off campaign code.

The Role

We are seeking a Lead Software Engineer to lead a small cohort of engineers building the collector-facing platform behind Topps collector engagement programs while remaining deeply hands-on in the design and delivery of production software.

This role combines people leadership with senior-level frontend engineering. The Lead will be accountable for the team’s execution, technical quality and development, while personally owning and contributing to complex frontend capabilities, architecture decisions, performance and real-time interaction. Working closely with Product, Design, Backend and Platform Engineering, this role will translate program requirements into shared components, state handling and telemetry that serve many programs rather than one.

As a player-coach, this leader will set technical direction, establish priorities, coach and develop engineers, remove delivery blockers and raise engineering standards. The role is expected to spend significant time designing, coding, reviewing and operating production software while ensuring the broader cohort delivers against Collector Engagement priorities.

Responsibilities

Lead, coach and develop a small cohort of frontend engineers working on Collector Engagement, with accountability for team execution, technical quality and individual growth
Set team priorities, allocate work and coordinate execution against Collector Engagement goals, release milestones and program commitments
Remain deeply hands-on: design, develop, test and maintain complex application features and platform components supporting collector engagement programs
Own the technical design and end-to-end delivery of significant frontend features and platform capabilities, contributing directly where technical complexity or delivery risk is highest
Own the frontend architecture for program surfaces, including component model, state management, data fetching, and the boundary between shared platform and per-program code
Solve complex and sometimes ambiguous engineering problems involving performance, scalability, reliability, real-time interaction and user experience
Make sound technical and team execution decisions with appropriate independence, balancing program requirements, engineering quality, scalability, delivery commitments and long-term maintainability
Lead architecture decisions, technical planning, design reviews and the evolution of frontend engineering patterns across the cohort
Partner with Product, Design, Backend and Platform Engineering to translate program requirements into reusable technical solutions and clear engineering plans
Define and evolve API contracts, client workflows and integration patterns, and challenge contracts that push avoidable complexity into the client
Design the shared component and pattern layer with Design so a new program is largely configuration plus a thin custom layer
Establish and enforce performance budgets for experiences used mid-event and on low-end devices
Define the frontend telemetry standard so program analytics are consistent across surfaces
Write clean, maintainable, well-tested code and establish strong patterns and best practices through direct contribution, code review and coaching
Improve engineering systems and practices across release management, CI/CD, testing, observability, crash reporting and operational support
Proactively identify technical, delivery and team capacity risks; remove blockers; and escalate or adjust plans when needed
Lead execution for initiatives that may span multiple engineers, systems or partner teams, ensuring ownership, sequencing and follow-through
Provide regular coaching, actionable feedback, technical guidance and development support to engineers, and contribute to hiring and team planning as needed
Create an environment of clear expectations, healthy engineering practices and strong collaboration across the Collector Engagement cohort
Partner with engineering and product leadership on staffing, workload, delivery tradeoffs and execution planning for Collector Engagement priorities
Influence engineering standards and practices within the team and collaborate with adjacent engineering teams on shared technical challenges
Stay current with frontend ecosystem trends, libraries and development patterns and apply relevant advancements to the platform

Required Qualifications

5+ years of professional frontend or mobile development experience, or equivalent demonstrated depth of experience
Advanced proficiency in JavaScript and TypeScript and modern component-based development
Strong experience with a modern component framework such as React or React Native
Demonstrated experience designing and delivering complex, production-scale consumer-facing applications
Deep command of client-side state management and data fetching, including selecting the approach for a codebase rather than working within an existing one
Strong understanding of application architecture, API design, networking, asynchronous programming and application lifecycle management
Experience making architectural and technical design decisions for significant features or systems
Strong understanding of application performance, reliability, testing, observability and debugging strategies
Experience owning performance as a discipline, including measurement, budgets and scope reduction
Experience identifying and resolving complex technical problems across multiple systems or components
Experience with CI/CD pipelines, automated testing, release management and version control systems
Ability to drive technical and team execution from ambiguous requirements through design, implementation, launch and operational support
Demonstrated ability to make and influence technical decisions, set priorities, and coordinate engineers and partners toward shared outcomes
Experience directly managing or formally leading engineers, including coaching, feedback, development, delegation and delivery accountability
Strong judgment in balancing hands-on technical contribution with people leadership, team capacity and delivery needs
Strong collaboration and communication skills across Engineering, Product and Design
Professional working proficiency in English, with daily collaboration across US-based product and engineering partners
Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or related technical field, or equivalent practical experience

Preferred Qualifications

Experience designing or scaling marketplace, e-commerce, loyalty, or other high-engagement consumer applications
Experience leading a frontend platform, design-system engineering effort, or small product engineering team
React Native at scale, or native iOS or Android depth
Familiarity with GraphQL, WebSockets, streaming technologies, or other real-time communication patterns
Experience with analytics, experimentation platforms and observability tooling
Experience improving frontend architecture or engineering standards across a development team
Experience managing delivery for technically complex initiatives involving multiple engineers or partner teams
Passion for sports, collectibles, creators, or digital communities

Code-Writing Contribution

This is a highly hands-on people leadership role. The Lead Software Engineer is expected to make substantial individual contributions to production code while also being accountable for the execution, technical quality and development of a small cohort of engineers.

The role will personally solve complex and ambiguous technical problems, contribute to architecture and critical implementation work, and establish engineering patterns that improve scalability, reliability, maintainability and user experience. Hands-on contribution should complement, not replace, effective delegation and team leadership.

In addition to direct code contributions, the Lead Software Engineer sets priorities, coordinates execution, conducts design and code reviews, coaches engineers, provides feedback and development support, removes blockers, and ensures the team delivers against Collector Engagement commitments.

Ensure your Fanatics job offer is legitimate and don’t fall victim to fraud. Fanatics never seeks payment from job applicants. Feel free to ask your recruiter for a phone call or other type of communication for interview, and ensure your communication is coming from a Fanatics email address (including @collectfanatics.com). For added security, where possible, apply through our company website at www.fanaticsinc.com/careers

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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