Data Engineer
Apply NowCompany: Minnesota Timberwolves & Lynx
Location: Minneapolis, MN 55407
Description:
Data Engineer - Basketball Analytics
Why Join the Pack?
At this organization, we do things a bit differently. We're not your typical sports franchise pouring all of our focus into the playing stage. We're about uniting together to push the culture forward, challenge the status quo, and accomplish things most didn't think was possible! Whether you're blazing trails in ticket sales, creating for our brands, or using your passion to elevate our vision, your contributions will always shine bright. Together, we are on a journey where chasing greatness is constant and breaking new grounds is a norm.
What would you do?
The Minnesota Timberwolves are seeking a highly skilled Data Engineer to join our Basketball Analytics department. This role is critical in developing scalable data infrastructure to support advanced analytics, decision-making, and in-game insights. You will work with large datasets to design, build, and optimize data pipelines, ensuring data is available for analysis in near real-time. The ideal candidate will work closely with analysts, data scientists, and basketball operations personnel to develop solutions that impact team strategy and performance. This role offers flexibility to work remotely.
Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals to perform these essential functions:
The above essential functions are not designed to cover or contain a comprehensive listing of activities, duties or responsibilities that are required of the employee for this job. Duties, responsibilities and activities may change at any time. This job description is not crafted to cover or contain a comprehensive listing of activities, duties or responsibilities that are required of the employee for this job. Duties, responsibilities, and activities may change at any time
Knowledge, Skills, Abilities and Other:
Additional information:
Experience: 3+ years of experience in backend data engineering, with a focus on real-time data processing, preferably in sports or a high-performance industry
Education: Bachelor's or master's degree in computer science, Data Engineering, or a related field.
Supervisory Responsibility, if any: This position does not have supervisory responsibility.
Work Environment
This job operates in a professional office environment. Office hours are typically 8:30 AM-5:00PM Monday-Friday. In addition to working office hours staff are required to work all Timberwolves and Lynx games, in addition to external events including but not limited to: charity and networking events. Work is generally sedentary in nature. The working environment is generally favorable. Lighting and temperature are adequate, and there are no hazardous or unpleasant conditions caused by noise, dust, etc. Work is generally performed within an office environment, with standard office equipment available. This job also operates in a sports arena, which includes bleachers/steps.
Physical Demands
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. While performing the duties of this job, the employee is regularly required to communicate and exchange information with others both in person and over the telephone. The employee frequently is required to remain in a stationary position, as well as operate computers and other office equipment, such as a copy machine, printer and telephone. Staff will frequently ascend and descend bleachers/steps and traverse around the arena both on event days and non-event days. Staff may occasionally move objects weighing up to 15 pounds.
Travel Position isn't expected to travel to external events.
EEO Statement
The Minnesota Timberwolves and Lynx are an equal employment opportunity organization
Our DEI Commitment
Our Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion initiatives reflect our nature as a Pack. Each one is defined by our collective strength and effort to move everyone forward. Through DEI, we speak up against social injustices, marginalization, and oppression, provide equal opportunities, embrace the differences of others, and create an environment where everyone feels accepted and welcome. Together, we empower each other to be champions of change, help put those around us in a position to win and use our voices for good.
As an organization, we're proud to commit to accountability, transparency, change, and building DEI into everything we do; because when we do, our community becomes stronger.
E-Verify Statement
We participate in E-Verify and will provide the federal government with your Form I-9 information to confirm that you are authorized to work in the U.S. If E-Verify cannot prove this, we will give you written instructions and an opportunity to contact Department of Homeland Security (DHS) or Social Security Administration (SSA) to resolve the issue before any action might be taken against you, including terminating your employment. Employers can only use E-Verify once you have accepted a job offer and completed the Form I-9.
Apply now to interview with us!
Why Join the Pack?
At this organization, we do things a bit differently. We're not your typical sports franchise pouring all of our focus into the playing stage. We're about uniting together to push the culture forward, challenge the status quo, and accomplish things most didn't think was possible! Whether you're blazing trails in ticket sales, creating for our brands, or using your passion to elevate our vision, your contributions will always shine bright. Together, we are on a journey where chasing greatness is constant and breaking new grounds is a norm.
What would you do?
The Minnesota Timberwolves are seeking a highly skilled Data Engineer to join our Basketball Analytics department. This role is critical in developing scalable data infrastructure to support advanced analytics, decision-making, and in-game insights. You will work with large datasets to design, build, and optimize data pipelines, ensuring data is available for analysis in near real-time. The ideal candidate will work closely with analysts, data scientists, and basketball operations personnel to develop solutions that impact team strategy and performance. This role offers flexibility to work remotely.
Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals to perform these essential functions:
- Design, develop, and maintain real-time data pipelines to process large volumes of structured and unstructured basketball data (e.g., game statistics, player tracking, video).
- Optimize data architectures, focusing on scalability, performance, and security to meet the evolving demands of basketball analytics.
- Implement ETL processes to integrate data from external sources, ensuring accuracy, reliability, and timeliness of ingested data.
- Collaborate with data scientists to deploy machine learning models and build APIs for easy access to processed data by internal teams.
- Utilize distributed computing and cloud infrastructure (e.g., AWS, Google Cloud) to enable real-time data processing and model deployment.
- Develop data pipelines to support training and fine-tuning of models on basketball-specific datasets.
- Work closely with the analytics team to provide data support for real-time in-game decision-making and post-game analysis.
- Build monitoring systems and maintain data warehouse infrastructure, ensuring data integrity and backup strategies for mission-critical datasets.
- Troubleshoot and optimize existing data systems, ensuring that data workflows run efficiently and with minimal downtime.
The above essential functions are not designed to cover or contain a comprehensive listing of activities, duties or responsibilities that are required of the employee for this job. Duties, responsibilities and activities may change at any time. This job description is not crafted to cover or contain a comprehensive listing of activities, duties or responsibilities that are required of the employee for this job. Duties, responsibilities, and activities may change at any time
Knowledge, Skills, Abilities and Other:
- Strong proficiency in SQL and experience with relational databases (SQL Server) for data warehousing.
- Advanced programming skills in Python and exposure to R.
- Familiarity with cloud platforms (AWS, Google Cloud, or Azure).
- Ability to maintain and monitor multiple remote servers.
- Experience with web development (python Django) and self-hosting web servers.
- Experience with AI models (e.g., LLMs, GANs) and frameworks (e.g., TensorFlow, PyTorch) is a plus.
- Strong problem-solving abilities and attention to detail.
- Excellent communication skills and ability to work collaboratively with cross-functional teams.
- Self-motivated with a strong desire to contribute to the team's success.
- Ability to work in a fast-paced, dynamic environment and manage multiple projects simultaneously.
- Passion for sports, particularly basketball, and experience working in sports analytics is desirable.
Additional information:
Experience: 3+ years of experience in backend data engineering, with a focus on real-time data processing, preferably in sports or a high-performance industry
Education: Bachelor's or master's degree in computer science, Data Engineering, or a related field.
Supervisory Responsibility, if any: This position does not have supervisory responsibility.
Work Environment
This job operates in a professional office environment. Office hours are typically 8:30 AM-5:00PM Monday-Friday. In addition to working office hours staff are required to work all Timberwolves and Lynx games, in addition to external events including but not limited to: charity and networking events. Work is generally sedentary in nature. The working environment is generally favorable. Lighting and temperature are adequate, and there are no hazardous or unpleasant conditions caused by noise, dust, etc. Work is generally performed within an office environment, with standard office equipment available. This job also operates in a sports arena, which includes bleachers/steps.
Physical Demands
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. While performing the duties of this job, the employee is regularly required to communicate and exchange information with others both in person and over the telephone. The employee frequently is required to remain in a stationary position, as well as operate computers and other office equipment, such as a copy machine, printer and telephone. Staff will frequently ascend and descend bleachers/steps and traverse around the arena both on event days and non-event days. Staff may occasionally move objects weighing up to 15 pounds.
Travel Position isn't expected to travel to external events.
EEO Statement
The Minnesota Timberwolves and Lynx are an equal employment opportunity organization
Our DEI Commitment
Our Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion initiatives reflect our nature as a Pack. Each one is defined by our collective strength and effort to move everyone forward. Through DEI, we speak up against social injustices, marginalization, and oppression, provide equal opportunities, embrace the differences of others, and create an environment where everyone feels accepted and welcome. Together, we empower each other to be champions of change, help put those around us in a position to win and use our voices for good.
As an organization, we're proud to commit to accountability, transparency, change, and building DEI into everything we do; because when we do, our community becomes stronger.
E-Verify Statement
We participate in E-Verify and will provide the federal government with your Form I-9 information to confirm that you are authorized to work in the U.S. If E-Verify cannot prove this, we will give you written instructions and an opportunity to contact Department of Homeland Security (DHS) or Social Security Administration (SSA) to resolve the issue before any action might be taken against you, including terminating your employment. Employers can only use E-Verify once you have accepted a job offer and completed the Form I-9.
Apply now to interview with us!