Principal / Senior Staff Backend Engineer

Description

We’re looking for a Principal / Senior Staff Backend Engineer (IC5) to shape the technical strategy of ProphetX as a company. You’ll be a recognized technical authority who solves our hardest problems, sets multi-year architectural direction for our exchange platform, and multiplies the impact of the entire engineering organization.### Key Responsibilities

• Define the long-term technical strategy and architecture for the exchange platform, aligned to business and regulatory goals.
• Lead company-level technical initiatives with ambiguous scope and significant business risk or opportunity.
• Drive critical decisions on scalability, resilience, and security for systems operating in a CFTC-regulated environment.
• Evaluate and introduce new technologies, build-versus-buy choices, and engineering practices at an organizational level.
• Advise executive and product leadership on technical feasibility, risk, and investment.
• Mentor staff and senior engineers, and help shape hiring, leveling, and engineering culture.
• Represent ProphetX’s engineering depth with partners, regulators, and the broader technical community where appropriate.
• Partner with product and leadership to influence roadmap and prioritization with technical insight.
• Proactively seek development opportunities and share knowledge with peers and junior engineers.

Skills, Knowledge and Expertise

• 10+ years of backend and distributed systems experience, including a track record of org- or company-wide technical impact
• Expert-level command of Go, Java, C++, or Python, and of large-scale system design
• Proven experience architecting and evolving mission-critical, low-latency, high-availability platforms (exchange, trading, payments, or comparable)
• Mastery of event-driven architecture, real-time APIs, data systems, and cloud-native infrastructure
• Deep experience with reliability, security, and compliance in regulated environments
• History of mentoring and growing senior and staff engineers
• Exceptional communication and influence skills, from engineers to executives
• Proactive, growth-focused, and highly adaptable with a strong sense of ownership
• Prediction markets, fintech, sports betting, or exchange experience is a plus

Why Join Us!

Compensation & Ownership* Competitive compensation aligned to role and market

• Equity opportunities so you share in what we’re building
• A clear connection between impact and reward

Health & Wellbeing* Medical, dental, and vision coverage

• Flexible time off built on trust and accountability
• A culture that respects your time and avoids unnecessary meetings

Remote & Flexible

Work* Fully remote within the U.S.

• Flexibility to work in the way that helps you do your best work

The Role* Set the multi-year technical direction for a live, CFTC-regulated exchange platform, as a recognized technical authority across the company

• Take on a high-impact IC role with direct influence on executive and product decisions, build-versus-buy choices, and engineering culture
• Help define what resilient, secure, and compliant exchange architecture looks like as a brand-new asset class scales

About ProphetX

ProphetX is America’s first sports-native prediction market, officially CFTC-regulated.

Our technology allows us to power America’s next great asset class, prediction markets, and the key driver behind them, sports event contracts. We have deep regulatory and operational expertise when it comes to sports-focused exchange infrastructure.

We hire smart, passionate people and trust them to own their work. We’re a remote-based team that values flexibility, clear communication, and doing great work together.

Build the future of sports markets today.

Equal Opportunity

Employer Statement

ProphetX is an Equal Opportunity Employer committed to building an inclusive, respectful, and high-performing workplace.

All employment decisions are based on qualifications, merit, and business needs, and we do not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, national origin, sex, gender, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, age, disability, veteran status, genetic information, or any other characteristic protected by applicable law.

We value diverse perspectives and experiences and believe they strengthen our teams, our products, and the impact we make, and we welcome applicants from all backgrounds.