Backend Engineer, L5

Senior Backend Engineer

$230k – $260k • meaningful equity

About Novig

Novig is building America's #1 sports prediction market. Our mission is to financialize and democratize sports trading - taking a closed system run by casinos and turning it into a fair, efficient, two-sided market where the power sits with users.

With CFTC approval on the horizon, we're poised to go live across all 50 states as the leading sports-focused, federally regulated market built on trust, transparency, and real user protection.

We're backed by some of Silicon Valley's top investors — Pantera, Forerunner, Lux, NFX, Paul Graham, and Joe Montana — who have collectively invested over $100M behind this vision.

About the Role

Sports trading infrastructure is years behind where it should be. You'll work deep in the stack — distributed systems, real-time data pipelines, developer-facing APIs for algorithmic traders — applying the same principles that make modern financial exchanges fast and transparent. The technical surface area is large and the team is small, so your decisions carry real weight. This role is for someone who thrives with ownership, moves fast, and gets genuinely excited by hard backend problems.

Who you are and what you will do

• Excited to apply state-of-the-art technologies from modern financial exchanges to enforce transparent and efficient market practices in the future of sports betting

• Work across infrastructure, data layer, networking, and application logic, depending on your familiarity with different components of our tech stack

• Contribute to frontend product development to maintain an outstanding user experience

• Build out a developer-first API experience for algorithmic trading integrations

• Scale real-time data ingestion and distribution pipelines

• Expand product features by extending modular service logic on top of existing core functionality

• Bring a passion for sports, markets, and technology, with curiosity about complex computer science challenges

• Hold a Bachelor's or Master's degree in Computer Science or a related technical field

• Possess 3+ years of experience developing distributed systems with cloud-based architecture

• Proficient in a systems programming language such as Rust, Go, or C++

• Understand trade-offs between technical decisions and business requirements

• Exhibit strong leadership, problem-solving, and communication skills

• Thrive independently and in small teams responsible for a large technical surface area

Why work here, in the words of the people who do

“I work with extremely stellar people, I own real systems, and decisions happen fast. No politics, no waiting for needless red tape. If something's broken, I fix it. If I build something good, it ships.”

“The people! They're smart, thoughtful, fun to work with and passionate about their craft.”

“I'm having the most fun I've had in my entire career.”

If you want responsibility, trust, and the chance to help build the future of sports prediction markets - take your shot, we’d love to connect.

Not for everyone

• Our work is tied to live sports - that means potential nights, weekends, and pressure included.

• If you need clear swim lanes, a heavy process, or someone to tell you what to do, this won’t be the right environment.

Compensation & benefits

• $230k – $260k base, benchmarked at top-tier tech companies

• Meaningful equity for every employee, regardless of role

• 100% health premiums covered

• 99% dental & vision covered

• 401(k) with 4% company match

• HSA + $1,080 annual company contribution

• $27/day lunch stipend when working from our NYC office

• $35/day dinner stipend when working from the NYC office after 6:30pm

Homebase

Union Square, NYC
In-person 4 days a week because we genuinely like being around each other.