Staff Infrastructure Engineer - Data Platform

At Underdog, we make sports more fun.

Our thesis is simple: build the best products and we’ll build the biggest company in the space, because there’s so much more to be built for sports fans. We’re just over five years in, and we’re one of the fastest-growing sports companies ever, most recently valued at $1.3B. And it’s still the early days.

We’ve built and scaled multiple games and products across fantasy sports, sports betting, and prediction markets, all united in one seamless, simple, easy to use, intuitive and fun app. 

Underdog isn’t for everyone. One of our core values is give a sh*t. The people who win here are the ones who care, push, and perform. If that’s you, come join us.

Winning as an Underdog is more fun.

You’ll be at the center of scaling Underdog’s real-time data platform, powering everything from pricing pipelines to ML-driven features. This is a high-impact role that bridges infrastructure, data engineering, and machine learning teams to define and deliver the next generation of Underdog’s platform.

About the role

• Design and implement a new real-time data pipeline using Kafka or other queuing technologies, supporting data engineering and ML use cases
• Partner with the data engineering team to stream data directly from core app Postgres databases.
• Begin executing the migration path from Datastream to a queuing-based architecture
• Outline and drive execution steps for eventual cloud migration from GCP to AWS, leveraging cloud-agnostic technologies
• Build scalable load testing frameworks to stress test pricing engineering systems and validate autoscaling logic
• Integrate testing frameworks into deployment pipelines to ensure robustness in every release.
• Collaborate with Pricing Engineering (PE) and Data Engineering (DE) teams to develop a 6–12 month technical roadmap for shared platform initiatives
• Modularize Terraform and other infrastructure-as-code solutions to support both PE and DE teams consistently

Who you are

• 8+ years of experience building and scaling high-performance distributed systems in production environments
• 8+ years of hands on expertise with Kubernetes, Kafka/Kinesis, and Terraform for cloud-native infrastructure
• Strong background in systems programming with Golang and C++ and a deep understanding of networking fundamentals
• Comfortable driving cloud agnostic infrastructure strategies across GCP and AWS
• Results-oriented, entrepreneurial, and able to move quickly in ambiguous, fast paced environments
• Background in building real time event driven systems for consumer-facing products
• Strong sense of ownership with the ability to set technical direction and influence multiple teams
• Knowledge of CI/CD pipelines and integrating advanced testing frameworks

Even better if you have

• Experience supporting ML infrastructure or data platforms at scale
• Familiarity with large-scale Terraform module design and multi-team infrastructure enablement

Our target starting base salary range for this position is between $200,000 and $290,000, plus pre-IPO equity.  Our comp range reflects the full scale of expected compensation for this role. Offers are calibrated based on experience, skills, impact, and geographies. Most new hires land in the lower half of the band, with the opportunity to advance toward the upper end over time.

What we can offer you:

• Unlimited PTO for full-time employees (we're extremely flexible with the exception of the first few weeks before & into the NFL season)
• 16 weeks of fully paid parental leave
• A $500 home office allowance
• A connected virtual-first culture with a highly engaged distributed workforce
• 5% 401k match, FSA, company paid health, dental, vision plan options for employees and dependents

#LI-REMOTE

This position may require sports betting licensure based on certain state regulations.

Underdog is an equal opportunity employer and doesn't discriminate on the basis of creed, race, sexual orientation, gender, age, disability status, or any other defining characteristic.