Engineering Manager, Search & Recommendations + Design System at Fanatics

San Mateo, California, United States -

Full Time

Start Date

Immediate

Expiry Date

19 May, 26

Salary

235000.0

Posted On

18 Feb, 26

Experience

5 year(s) or above

Remote Job

Yes

Telecommute

Yes

Sponsor Visa

Skills

Search, Recommendations, Design System, Technical Leadership, Architecture, System Design, Scalability, Reliability, Accessibility, Personalization, React, TypeScript, A/B Testing, Component Libraries, Frontend Performance Optimization, ML-driven Ranking

Industry

Manufacturing

Description

Fanatics is seeking a highly technical Engineering Manager to lead two critical platform teams responsible for Search, Recommendations, and the Frontend Design System across Fanatics’ global e-commerce ecosystem. These platforms power product discovery and frontend consistency across 1,000+ sports and fan merchandise websites, serving millions of users worldwide. This role is ideal for a hands-on technical leader who thrives in fast-paced environments, actively contributes to architecture and system design, and leads teams to deliver scalable, reliable, and accessible platform capabilities. Responsibilities: Own and drive the technical and execution strategy across Search, Recommendations, and the Frontend Design System. Lead platform development focused on search relevance, personalization, browse optimization, and scalable frontend architecture. Drive quarterly roadmap planning and ensure predictable, high-quality delivery across multiple engineering pods. Contribute to architecture and technical design reviews, ensuring systems are scalable, resilient, and aligned with long-term platform evolution. Partner with Product and Data teams to integrate ML-driven ranking and personalization capabilities into discovery systems. Establish and maintain strict performance, latency, availability, and reliability standards across platform services. Drive a high-velocity experimentation culture, leveraging A/B testing and data-informed iteration to improve engagement and conversion. Own the evolution and adoption of reusable React and TypeScript component libraries that ensure frontend consistency and accessibility. Set standards for frontend architecture, component governance, and client-side performance optimization. Provide structure, clarity, and operational rigor in planning, execution, and stakeholder communication. Identify risks early, communicate trade-offs effectively, and ensure leadership has clear visibility into progress and outcomes. Mentor and grow engineers and technical leads, fostering accountability, ownership, and engineering excellence across teams. Qualifications: 8+ years of software engineering experience, including 2+ years managing engineering teams in high-scale consumer, marketplace, or platform environments. Experience leading engineering teams in fast-paced environments with strong execution discipline and agile delivery practices. Strong technical background in search and relevance systems, personalization platforms, backend services, or modern frontend architecture at scale. Deep expertise in React, TypeScript, and modern frontend architecture, including state management and frontend performance optimization. Experience building, scaling, or governing reusable component libraries or centralized design systems used across multiple product surfaces. Experience delivering scalable, production-grade systems used by large numbers of users, with strict latency, availability, and reliability standards. Experience contributing meaningfully to architecture and technical design reviews, with the ability to assess trade-offs and guide technical direction. Experience operating experimentation platforms and A/B testing frameworks in production environments. Strong execution, organizational, and cross-functional leadership skills with the ability to drive roadmap planning and communicate risks and outcomes clearly. Preferred Qualifications: Experience with modern search platforms such as Google Vertex AI Search, Elasticsearch, OpenSearch, or similar search databases. Experience working with recommendation or personalization systems, including ML-driven ranking, relevance tuning, or third-party personalization platforms. Backend services development experience in Go (Golang) or similar high-performance backend languages. Experience improving engineering productivity through AI-assisted or agentic development workflows. Familiarity with modern AI-powered development tools, code generation, and automation frameworks. Experience integrating AI capabilities into platform systems or engineering workflows. At Fanatics, we value transparency and honesty. If you don’t meet every single requirement, that’s okay – we still want to hear from you! We believe in the power of diverse experiences and talents. If you’re excited about the role and confident that you can contribute, don’t hesitate to apply. We’re genuinely interested in how your unique skills and perspective can help us build something amazing together. The salary range for this position is $216,000 - $235,000, which represents base pay only and does not include short-term or long-term incentive compensation. When determining base pay, as part of a final compensation package, we consider several factors such as location, experience, qualifications, and training. Where You’ll Work and What’s required: Hybrid work environment flexibility, with Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays in office; Mondays and Fridays days remote. Fast-paced team environment with exposure to multiple aspects of the Fanatics Commerce business. Ability to travel up to 10% of the time for partner meetings, events, and other related activities. What’s in it for you: Culture: Join a team where you're surrounded by top-tier talent, driven by a shared passion to relentlessly enhance the fan experience. With a focus on collaboration, support, and continuous development, you’ll be empowered to help shape a culture that celebrates both individual and team successes. Benefits: We provide a wide range of health, financial, legal, and development assistance, including wellness programs with fitness and weight management partners, paid maternity paternity leave, and infertility treatment. Additionally, we offer flexible time off to help you recharge, along with a competitive 401k plan to support your financial future. At Fanatics, we’re dedicated to supporting you in all aspects of work and life. 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. Fanatics Commerce is a leading designer, manufacturer, and seller of licensed fan gear, jerseys, lifestyle and streetwear products, headwear, and hardgoods. It operates a vertically-integrated platform of digital and physical capabilities for leading sports leagues, teams, colleges, and associations globally – as well as its flagship site, www.fanatics.com. Fanatics Commerce has a broad range of online, sports venue, and vertical apparel partnerships worldwide, including comprehensive partnerships with leading leagues, teams, colleges, and sports organizations across the world—including the NFL, NBA, MLB, NHL, MLS, Formula 1, and Australian Football League (AFL); the Dallas Cowboys, Golden State Warriors, Paris Saint-Germain, Manchester United, Chelsea FC, and Tokyo Giants; the University of Notre Dame, University of Alabama, and University of Texas; the International Olympic Committee (IOC), England Rugby, and the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA). At Fanatics Commerce, we infuse our BOLD Leadership Principles in everything we do: · Build Championship Teams · Obsessed with Fans · Limitless Entrepreneurial Spirit · Determined and Relentless Mindset

Responsibilities

The manager will own and drive the technical and execution strategy across Search, Recommendations, and the Frontend Design System, leading platform development focused on relevance, personalization, and scalable frontend architecture. Responsibilities also include driving quarterly roadmap planning, contributing to architecture reviews, and mentoring engineers to foster excellence.