Engineering Lead - CORE Team

Employment Type: Full-time

Company Overview

Collectors is the leading creator of innovative technology that provides value-added services for collectors worldwide. We grade, authenticate, vault, and sell millions of record-setting collectibles, all while modernizing and digitalizing the process to further our mission of helping collectors pursue their passions. We’re always on the lookout for talented people to join our growing team.

Our services span collectible coins, trading cards, Funko Pops!, video games, event tickets, autographs, and memorabilia. Our subsidiaries include PSA, PCGS, SGC, WATA, and Card Ladder.

Since our founding in 1986, we have graded and authenticated millions of items. We employ more than 1,900 people across our headquarters in Santa Ana and offices in Jersey City, Tokyo, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Toronto, Guadalajara, Dallas, and Paris.

Shared Services Team

Our Shared Services team is responsible for building modern cloud-based applications, integrations (APIs and asynchronous), AI/ML based services, and scalable architectures that power software solutions across the organization. As a member of this team, your day-to-day work will be focused on building new capabilities for all other engineering teams, along with modernizing existing application architectures.

Role Overview

We’re looking for an Engineering Lead to join our CORE team as a hands-on technical leader who can set the bar for engineering excellence while guiding and inspiring a high-performing team. In this role, you'll build robust and scalable backend systems that support our digital transformation and power the foundation for Collectors' products and services. You'll lead from the front—writing high-quality code, leading talented engineers, driving architectural decisions, and evolving legacy systems into modern, reusable platforms. We’re looking for someone who brings a strong bias for action—able to move work forward with urgency, remove blockers, and accelerate progress without sacrificing quality. Your work will have a broad, company-wide impact, enabling product teams to deliver innovative, value-added experiences for both our collector community and internal stakeholders.

You will be reporting directly to the Director of Software Engineering, Shared Services. We believe that there is significant value in in-person collaboration. If you live within a 1-hour commuting distance to one of our offices, you will be required to be onsite most of the time. Remote or hybrid candidates will be considered. This will be discussed further as part of the recruiting process.

What You’ll Do

• Lead the design, architecture, and delivery of scalable backend systems that power Collectors’ core platforms.
• Deliver high-quality code to production as a player-coach, setting a standard for excellence on the team.
• Own and implement complex features end-to-end, from concept through deployment and support.
• Mentor engineers and drive a high standard of technical quality through code reviews, architecture discussions, and hands-on guidance.
• Modernize legacy systems and improve performance, reliability, and maintainability across Shared Services.
• Collaborate cross-functionally with product, infrastructure, and engineering teams to align on goals and deliver impactful solutions.

What We’re Looking For

• 12+ years of software engineering experience building production-grade applications.
• 7+ years of experience with Java. Python experience is a plus!
• 3+ years of experience in leading or managing Engineering teams.
• Strong grasp of object-oriented programming, data structures, algorithms, and design patterns.
• Experience designing and building scalable APIs (REST, GraphQL, gRPC) and modular, extensible architectures.
• Hands-on experience with relational and NoSQL databases (e.g., MSSQL, PostgreSQL, DynamoDB).
• 3+ years of experience with AWS cloud services (e.g., Lambda, RDS, S3, DynamoDB, MSK, SNS, SQS) and infrastructure tools like Terraform and Docker.
• Familiarity with... (Further details on familiarity with tools/technologies would typically follow here).