UpNext / New York City or Charlotte (Hybrid or Remote)
Learn more
Visit our website at https://upnext.team
Role Mission
As a Software Engineer at UpNext, you'll help build and ship the transfer portal intelligence platform used by college coaches nationwide to track transfer portal activity, build recruit lists, and evaluate roster needs.
UpNext surfaces the signals that drive college athletics across every conference, every cycle, from portal activity and recruiting movement to agent representation and market trends. You'll write code every day, take features from idea to release, and grow quickly with hands-on guidance from UpNext's founder and engineering leadership.
This is an early engineering hire with real ownership, and you'll help shape how UpNext's product is built as it scales.
Core Responsibilities
Engineering & Product Delivery
Build across the full stack, using AI coding agents to move faster and ship well-tested code regularly
Ship features across core platform surfaces: Search, Smart Lists, Insights, Team Pages, Athlete Profiles, and the Activity Feed
Turn direction, prototypes, and coach feedback from the founder into scoped, polished, working software
Support UpNext's core data pipeline (NCAA transfer portal data, JUCO data, AI-resolved transfer destinations, and emerging high school data sources) and help keep the data accurate and complete
Help build and improve LLM-powered features and automated workflows
Collaboration & Learning
Work side by side with the founder and engineering leadership on planning, technical decisions, and code review, and bring your own ideas to the table
Learn the existing architecture, integrations, and data flows well enough to build confidently on a live codebase
Turn feedback from coaches and recruiting staff into improvements that make the product more useful
Quality & Operations
Participate in UpNext's weekly release cycle, including code review and QA before changes reach coaches
Fix bugs, add tests, and keep code and documentation clear so the team can move faster and safer
Help improve testing, observability, and deployment where they make development faster and safer
Growth Path - First 3 Months
Month 1: Foundation
Learn the architecture, integrations, data flows, and technical risks of the existing codebase
Get to know the UpNext platform: Search, Smart Lists, Insights, Team Pages, Athlete Profiles, and Activity Feed
Learn the recruiting and transfer portal domain, including how portal data flows into the product
Ship your first improvements to production
Month 2: Growing Ownership
Take on feature work with increasing independence
Contribute to technical decisions and code reviews
Begin joining the weekly product and leadership discussion
Help with release and QA tasks
Month 3: Independence
Own features from scoping through release
Work directly with the founder on priorities and tradeoffs
Identify and propose improvements to the product, data pipeline, and engineering workflow
Additional Opportunities
Grow your technical depth across a data-heavy, AI-enabled product
Take on more ownership as UpNext and the engineering team scale
Deepen your expertise in the college sports recruiting and transfer portal space
Qualifications
Approximately 2–4 years of experience building and shipping production software, with ownership of features from implementation through release
Strong full-stack engineering skills, including experience with APIs, integrations, and asynchronous workflows
Familiarity with TypeScript, Next.js/React, and Postgres (Supabase)
Demonstrated ability to learn, extend, and improve an existing production codebase
Hands-on experience using AI coding agents to accelerate development; experience shipping LLM-enabled features is a plus
Exposure to ETL or data pipelines is a plus
Solid computer-science fundamentals, whether developed through formal study or practical experience
Clear written and verbal communication, including working with founders and other non-engineering stakeholders
Based in New York City or Charlotte (open to Hybrid and Remote)
We care more about demonstrated ability, judgment, passion, and ownership than exact years of experience or résumé shape.
Nice to Have
Experience working with Supabase, Tailwind CSS, GCP tools and services
Experience working with Devin (Cognition's AI engineer)
Former college athlete
A portfolio of passion projects or past initiatives that you have directly built or majority was contributed by you
Compensation
Base salary: $120,000 to $180,000, depending on experience and demonstrated ability.
Americans with Disabilities Statement
Must be able to perform all essential functions of this position with reasonable accommodation.
EEO Statement
We are an Equal Opportunity Employer. Our goal is to be a diverse workforce that is representative, at all job levels, of the communities we serve. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, national origin, protected veterans' status, and will not be discriminated against on the basis of disability or any other applicable legally protected characteristic.