Job description
BSN SPORTS, A VARSITY BRANDS COMPANY - THE RECOGNIZED LEADER IN TEAM ATHLETIC GEAR
For over 50 years, BSN SPORTS has been the largest team sporting goods equipment and apparel distributor of choice in the United States. Our 3,000 BSN SPORTS employees strive to support the Heart of the Game by putting valuable time back into the day of coaches and administrators through excellent service platforms. Our company mission is simple: Save coaches and administrators time with everything they do off the field so they have more time to impact young lives on it.
LOCATION: Remote
TRAVEL: 10-15% (quarterly on-sites, team events)
HOW YOU WILL MAKE AN IMPACT:
BSN SPORTS, part of Varsity Brands, is replacing its legacy quote-and-order-entry tooling (QOE) with Team Art Locker (TAL) — a modern, web-facing platform that manages team art, uniform designs, templates, and their full production specifications for embroidery, screen print, and digital decoration. TAL is built on a PHP/Symfony service layer with React front ends, MySQL, and AWS, and is guided by our “One Creative Core, Many Front Doors” vision: design assets are managed once, in a single authoritative core, and made available to every channel that creates value.
The Director, Software Engineering leads and develops the backend engineering team that builds TAL and the creative core. Platform strategy and priorities are owned by the SVP, Specialized Applications & Platforms; technical direction and architectural patterns are guided by our senior architects. The Director’s mandate is to build the team that executes both well — growing engineers, establishing strong day-to-day engineering practices, and delivering committed work predictably and at high quality.
This is first and foremost a people-leadership role. The team is a deliberate mix of recently converted contractors and early-tenure hires, each with defined workstreams and real room to grow. The Director will invest heavily in coaching, mentorship, structured onboarding, and skill development — turning individual contributors into a cohesive, self-improving team — while maintaining the technical credibility to review work, teach by example, and translate architectural guidance into daily practice.
Impact of the Role
Through people-first engineering leadership, this role will deliver:
A cohesive, durable backend engineering team — contractors successfully converted, new hires ramped quickly into defined workstreams, and engineers growing in skill and scope year over year
Consistent, high-quality execution of the platform roadmap — including the QOE→VOE and CC→VOE migrations — with predictable delivery against commitments
Day-to-day engineering practices (code review, testing, CI/CD, observability, secure development) that raise the floor of quality across everything the team ships
Effective translation of senior-architect guidance into working software — patterns adopted consistently, feedback flowing back constructively
Growing leadership depth on the team, with leads developing toward larger scope and clear succession paths
A team culture of ownership, learning, and collaboration that makes the platform organization stronger every quarter
WHAT YOU WILL DO:
Team Leadership & Talent Development
Build, coach, develop, and retain a high-performing backend engineering team; set clear expectations and provide continuous, candid, growth-oriented feedback
Design and run structured onboarding that ramps new hires quickly into bounded workstream ownership, and support recently converted contractors through the transition to internal roles
Create individualized development plans, mentorship pairings, and growth paths for every engineer; develop Lead Software Engineers toward larger scope and build succession depth
Foster an inclusive culture of ownership, learning, collaboration, and continuous improvement
Engineering Practice & Craft Development
Establish, teach, and continuously reinforce day-to-day engineering practices: code review, automated testing, CI/CD, observability, documentation, and secure development habits
Build the team’s learning loops — design review forums, pairing, tech talks, and shared standards — so knowledge spreads rather than siloing in individuals
Translate the patterns, standards, and technical direction set by senior architects into the team’s daily work, and ensure they are adopted consistently
Champion software quality and security practices in partnership with Architecture, Security, and Quality Engineering
Delivery Execution
Lead day-to-day delivery of backend workstreams — including the QOE→VOE and CC→VOE migrations, core services, and API work — against priorities set by the SVP
Run disciplined planning and execution rhythms: sprint planning, capacity management, dependency coordination, and removal of blockers
Monitor delivery health and quality, and drive continuous improvements that make delivery more predictable quarter over quarter
Ensure operational discipline: production support habits, incident response, and blameless root-cause analysis that feeds back into team learning
Partnership & Communication
Partner closely with senior architects — executing within their technical direction while surfacing the team’s practical feedback to improve designs and standards
Partner with Product Management on scope, sequencing, and tradeoffs for backend deliverables
Keep the SVP informed with clear, honest reporting on delivery status, team health, risks, and capacity — escalating early and with options
Represent the backend team in cross-functional planning with the front-end/configurator track, Security, Quality Engineering, and business stakeholders
Key Performance Indicators
Success in this role will be measured through:
Team health: retention and engagement of the backend team, successful stabilization of converted contractors, and new-hire ramp time to independent workstream ownership
Talent growth: measurable skill and scope progression across the team, lead development, and succession readiness
Delivery predictability: committed-versus-delivered performance across planning cycles, including scheduled migration milestones on the platform roadmap
Engineering practice adoption: code review coverage, test coverage trends, CI/CD maturity, and consistency of standards across the team’s output
Operational stability: production incident trends, response quality, and evidence of learning from root-cause analysis
Partner feedback: confidence from the SVP, senior architects, and Product Management in the team’s execution and communication
QUALIFICATIONS:
Knowledge, Skills, Abilities
People Leadership & Coaching
Proven track record building, developing, and retaining engineering teams — with specific evidence of growing individual engineers into stronger contributors and leaders
Skilled at structured onboarding, mentorship, individualized development planning, and performance management delivered with candor and care
Creates team cultures where feedback is normal, learning is continuous, and ownership is shared
Technical Credibility
Solid grounding in modern server-side web application engineering — enough to review code and designs, coach engineers on craft, and earn the team’s technical respect
Comfortable working in a PHP/Symfony, MySQL, React, and AWS environment, or with a demonstrated history of quickly becoming credible in new stacks
Understands modern engineering practices — CI/CD, automated testing, observability, secure development — well enough to teach and enforce them
Delivery Management
Runs disciplined, predictable delivery: planning, capacity management, dependency coordination, and clear status communication
Balances delivery commitments with team development — protecting time for learning and quality rather than sacrificing them to the schedule
Collaboration & Judgment
Leads confidently while executing within strategy owned by the SVP and technical direction guided by senior architects — secure enough to follow direction well and to push back constructively when the team’s experience warrants it
Communicates clearly and honestly with engineers, architects, product partners, and executives; builds trust through transparency and consistency
Education, Certification and Experience
Required
Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Information Systems, or a related technical discipline; equivalent combination of education and relevant experience will also be considered
8+ years of software engineering experience, including 4+ years directly leading, coaching, and developing software engineers on business-critical systems
Demonstrated success growing engineering talent — onboarding programs, mentorship, promotions, or team members developed into leads
Hands-on engineering background sufficient to review code and designs and coach on engineering craft
Experience running disciplined Agile delivery across concurrent workstreams, with a track record of predictable execution
Experience operating customer-facing production systems, including incident response and root-cause analysis practices
Experience partnering effectively with Product Management, Architecture, and Security functions
Preferred
Experience with PHP/Symfony, MySQL, React, or AWS environments
Experience leading blended contractor/employee teams, including vendor transitions or contractor-to-employee conversion
Experience leading teams through legacy-system migration or platform modernization programs
Domain exposure to e-commerce, product customization/configuration, order management, or order-to-production workflows
Experience leading geographically distributed or remote engineering teams
Master’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Business Administration, or a related field
Physical Demands and/or Work Environment
The physical demands described here are representative of those that must be met by an employee to successfully perform the essential functions of this job. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions.
Please note this job description is not designed to cover or contain a comprehensive listing of activities, duties or responsibilities required of the employee for this job.
OUR VALUES
Service - We lead with heart. We champion community.
Passion - We love what we do. It fuels our purpose.
Integrity - We do what we promise. We own our actions and decisions.
Respect - We earn it by giving it. Because everyone deserves it.
Innovation - We never stop striving to be better. For ourselves and our community.
Transparency - We are committed to openness and honesty in everything we do.
OUR BENEFITS
We are committed to putting you and your families first. For benefits eligible roles, we offer a variety of choices and costs as well as program enhancements that align with our responsibility to elevate the employee experience. Some of our offerings include:
Comprehensive Health Care Benefits
HSA Employer Contribution/ FSA Opportunities
Wellbeing Program
401(k) plan with company matching
Company paid Life, AD&D, and Short-Term Disability
Generous My Time Off & Paid Holidays
Varsity Brands Ownership Program
Employee Resource Groups
Access to Financial Coaching and member-owned Credit Union
St. Jude Partnership & Volunteer Opportunities
Employee Perks including discounts on personal apparel and equipment!
Eligibility for company-sponsored benefits is determined by scheduled work hours, and the terms of the applicable benefit plans. Benefit offerings and eligibility requirements may vary by position and are subject to change in accordance with plan documents and applicable law.
Varsity Brands companies are equal opportunity employers. Qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, religion, color, national origin, citizenship, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, veteran’s status, age or disability.
Originally posted on Himalayas
Who can apply
Eligible countries: United States. Accepted UTC offsets: UTC-10, UTC-9, UTC-8, UTC-7, UTC-6, UTC-5, UTC+14. Review the full description for employer-specific work authorization, residency and schedule requirements.