Backend Engineer - Risk & Trading

About Sleeper
Sleeper is a rapidly growing platform for sports fans with messaging and gameplay at its core. While much of our existing infrastructure is Elixir‑driven, this role will focus on Python services that integrate tightly with Elixir, GCP, and our distributed databases. You will collaborate with product, data, and frontend teams to ship user‑facing features that are fair, fast, and resilient.

What You’ll Be Doing

• Design & implement Python backend services that power real‑time risk management and trading operations.

• Build scalable infrastructure for pricing engines, market creation, settlement, and exposure management.

• Integrate with our Elixir services via gRPC/REST, Kafka, and Redis to ensure consistency and low‑latency performance.

• Architect distributed systems on Google Cloud Platform (GCP) using Pub/Sub, Cloud Run/Kubernetes, and BigQuery.

• Develop robust monitoring, alerting, and CI/CD pipelines to ensure high availability and quick incident response.

• Collaborate with data scientists on model deployment and optimize end‑to‑end latency from pricing to settlement.

• Own projects from ideation through production, making thoughtful trade‑offs in ambiguous, high‑stakes environments.

Who You Are

• 4+ years of backend engineering experience with a strong focus on Python (FastAPI, Django, or similar).

• Proven ability to design and operate distributed systems handling high throughput and low latency.

• Experience with message queues/streams (Apache Kafka, Google Pub/Sub) and caching layers (Redis).

• Comfortable interacting with Elixir/Erlang or other functional stacks, or eager to learn.

• Pragmatic engineer who thinks critically about edge cases and failure modes, especially in financial or real‑time systems.

• Calm, methodical, and communicative when incidents occur; you thrive under pressure.

• Preferred Skills (Nice to Have)Prior work with ScyllaDB/Cassandra or other wide‑column distributed databases.

• Familiarity with Rust, Go, or C++ for high‑performance components.

• Knowledge of risk modeling, market‑making algorithms, or sports‑betting infrastructure.

• Hands‑on experience with Kubernetes, GitLab CI, and infrastructure‑as‑code tools (Terraform).

• Deep understanding of observability: Prometheus, Grafana, OpenTelemetry

Preferred Skills (Not Required)

• Experience with Elixir, ErlangVM, or other functional programming languages

• Familiarity with ScyllaDB, Cassandra, or other distributed databases

• Experience in financial systems, market making, or real-money gaming infrastructure

• Knowledge of risk modeling, pricing engines, or real-time alerting systems
  

Benefits

• Competitive salary and stock options

• Comprehensive health, dental, and vision insurance

• 401(k)

• Flexible working hours and remote work options

• Opportunities for career advancement

What we offer

Sleeper believes in quality over quantity, and intentionally keeps our team small as a result. In past roles, we found it very hard to make a big impact when companies grow too large in size, which has a detrimental effect on the product and the impact any single individual can have. Our team includes designers, engineers, product experts, and finance & operation focused on one thing — connecting people over sports. We believe in fair and equitable pay. Certain locations in the United States require job postings to include a reasonable estimate of the base salary range and/or a general description of benefits and other compensation applicable to the role.

Competitive salary plus benefits including Medical, Dental, PTO, 401k. Please note that The salary range for this role takes into account a wide range of factors that are considered in making compensation decisions including, but not limited to, skill sets; experience and training; licensure and certifications; and other business and organizational needs. The policy of Sleeper is to provide equal employment opportunities to all applicants and employees without regard to race, color, creed, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, marital status, citizenship status, age, national origin, ancestry, disability, veteran status, or any other legally protected status and to affirmatively seek to advance the principles of equal employment opportunity. Sleeper is committed to being an Equal Opportunity Employer and offers opportunities to all job seekers, including job seekers with disabilities. If you are a qualified individual with a disability or a disabled veteran, you may request a reasonable accommodation if you are unable or limited in your ability to use or access the Company’s career webpage as a result of your disability. You may request reasonable accommodations by sending an email to jobs@sleeper.app.

Headquartered in Las Vegas, NV, Sleeper is backed by Silicon Valley’s top investors, including Andreessen Horowitz, General Catalyst, and Expa.
To learn more, visit us online at: www.sleeper.com