Lead Software Engineer

Excel Sports Management•Chicago, IL

11d•$200,000 - $240,000•Onsite

About The Position

Excel Sports Management is an industry-leading sports agency representing top-tier talent, blue-chip brands and marquee properties. Our success is rooted in our people, our high character reputation and our commitment to creating a diverse and welcoming workplace. We focus on team chemistry, collaboration, strong relationships, valuable networks, and ambitious ideas to deliver innovative solutions that keep our clients and agency ahead of the curve. Excel Sports Management is an Equal Opportunity Employer (EOE). Position Overview: We are seeking a Senior Full Stack Engineer with strong DevOps expertise and domain knowledge in sports to help design, build, deploy, and operate analytics-driven applications and platforms. This Director-level role is ideal for an engineer who enjoys full ownership of systems—from frontend and backend development to CI/CD, cloud infrastructure, and data platforms. This role will be based in our Chicago Office. You will play a key role in building scalable, production-grade tools used by Excel teams and external partners, while helping establish best practices across engineering, data, and cloud operations. This Position Is a Great Fit If You… Want end-to-end ownership, from application development through cloud deployment and operations Enjoy working across frontend, backend, infrastructure, and data without being siloed Care about building production-grade, scalable systems, not just prototypes Like turning ambiguous business needs into clean, well-architected solutions Believe in automation-first engineering, including Terraform-based IaC and CI/CD Enjoy collaborating with analytics, marketing, and client-facing teams Want your work to have direct, visible impact on internal teams and external clients Are excited to help shape technical standards while staying hands-on Have demonstrated experience in sports and want to take your career to the next level

Requirements

5+ years of professional software engineering experience with full stack ownership, including 2 years of experience in the sports industry
Strong experience building frontend and backend applications
Demonstrated expertise in DevOps and cloud engineering, including:
CI/CD pipeline design and implementation
Docker and containerized workloads
Infrastructure as Code using Terraform
Hands-on experience deploying and operating systems on AWS
Strong proficiency in Python
Strong proficiency in Node.js and modern React-based frontend frameworks
Experience designing or working with data lakes, data warehouses, or large-scale analytics platforms
Solid understanding of cloud networking, security, and observability
Demonstrated ability to lead projects and proactively manage varied stakeholders
Ability to work independently, take ownership, and operate in a fast-paced environment

Nice To Haves

Experience with Apache Airflow or similar orchestration tools
Experience building or integrating AI/ML-driven solutions
Familiarity with serverless and event-driven architectures
Experience working in analytics, data science, or insight-driven product teams
Strong interest in sports

Responsibilities

Serve as the primary owner of AWS infrastructure, leveraging Terraform to manage Dockerized services, Airflow orchestration and data warehousing
Design, develop, and maintain end-to-end applications, including frontend, backend, and infrastructure components
Build and manage CI/CD pipelines that produce Docker containers and/or installable packages
Define, provision, and manage cloud infrastructure using Terraform
Architect and maintain cloud-native systems with a focus on reliability, scalability, security, and cost efficiency
Build and manage data lakes, data warehouses, or similar analytics platforms to support reporting, modeling, and client deliverables
Develop backend services and data workflows, with a strong emphasis on Python-based systems
Design and maintain data orchestration pipelines (e.g., Apache Airflow)
Collaborate closely with analytics, marketing, product, and client-facing teams to translate business needs into technical solutions
Lead and mentor a small engineering team providing technical guidance, performance feedback and task prioritization within the analytics group
Support both internal stakeholders and external clients, ensuring solutions are robust, well-documented, and production-ready
Implement best practices for testing, monitoring, deployment, and documentation
Troubleshoot and resolve issues across application, data, and infrastructure layers while providing production support during standard working hours
Lead relevant internal Center of Excellence for deepening and standardizing use of data in sports science and athlete performance