Sports Reference: User Experience (UX) Designer

Headquarters: Remote URL: https://www.sports-reference.com/

Job Summary

Sports Reference, LLC is seeking a User Experience (UX) Designer to help build new products and features that empower users to enjoy, understand, and share the sports they love. They currently serve 20 million (and growing) monthly users through their free, ad-supported Reference sites (Baseball-Reference.com, Basketball-Reference.com, Pro-Football-Reference.com, etc.) and Stathead.com, their SaaS offering that provides powerful search and filtering capabilities for deeper exploration of their vast databases. In 2023, they acquired Immaculate Grid, the viral baseball trivia game, and have since launched ad-supported grid games for basketball, football, hockey, and soccer.

To Apply

Please visit their jobs website at https://sports-reference-llc.breezy.hr/ and submit your resume and a cover letter for this position. As a postscript (p.s.) at the end of your cover letter, please tell them your favorite sports team logo to demonstrate that you read the job description.

They will begin the phone interview process the week of January 19th, 2026. Applications arriving after this date will be collected, but will receive consideration at the discretion of the hiring manager based on the progress they have made in filling the position. You can find a general outline of their interview process here: https://www.sports-reference.com/job-interview-process.html

Our Purpose and Values

They democratize data, so their users enjoy, understand, and share the sports they love.

They value:

Respect for their users, the athletes they cover, and their team
Craftsmanship in building tools and products
Reliable tools and services that meet their users' needs every day
Data democratization. They publish many data sets for emerging and underserved sports. The New York Times covered their recognition of the Negro Leagues as major leagues in the summer of 2021. They added women’s college basketball data to their sites in 2023 and now have the only publicly available database of every score in women’s NCAA Division 1 history.

To meet these expectations, they encourage team members to participate in company discussions and share new ideas, features or potential solutions to problems.

Background

Are you a highly motivated, user-focused designer ready to make your mark at a company that is already an essential resource for hundreds of millions of sports fans annually?

Sports Reference is hiring a junior UX Designer to join their Product Department. This is a unique opportunity to build on a powerful legacy — supporting brands like Baseball Reference, Basketball Reference, Pro Football Reference, and Immaculate Grid — while helping to propel them toward the future. If you're a designer who is excited by the challenge of balancing rich data with elegant simplicity, and you thrive in a culture of outcome-based, iterative improvement, they want to hear from you.

Join them in fulfilling their product vision: "To make it simple and engaging for sports fans to enjoy the sports they love."

A Design Ethos That Puts the User First

Their design philosophy is "aggressively functional." They aim to create experiences that are fast, easy to navigate, and accessible, encouraging exploration without sacrificing speed. Their senior UX designer describes the vision this way:

"We draw more inspiration from Wikipedia than we do from most other sports sites. Our guiding philosophy is 'aggressively functional.' If you find this philosophy inspiring rather than limiting, you would love working here. As the Shaker design philosophy states: 'Don’t make something unless it is both necessary and useful; but if it is both necessary and useful, don’t hesitate to make it beautiful.'"

What You’ll Do (and Achieve) in Your First Year

You will be a co-leader within a cross-functional product team, charged with discovering, developing, and delivering improvements that drive weekly active usage.

In your first year, you will:

Design & Iterate: Create wireframes, mockups, and prototypes of varying fidelity to refine the user experience.
Bridge Design and Engineering: Work closely with engineers to ensure quality through the build process—providing specifications in Figma, unblocking UX questions, and reviewing in-progress work.
Champion the User: Identify risks through evaluative user research and usability tests, translating those findings into actionable insights.
Measure Success: Define, track, and report on key UX metrics to ensure their products are truly meeting fan needs.
Collaborate Across the Board: Coordinate with Product Marketing to align designs with go-to-market strategies and build deep roots within the product team through collaborative discussions.

Room to Grow

This is a junior position with a clear path for growth within the company. While you will report directly to the Executive Director of Product, you’ll also collaborate with their Senior Design Director to propose and iterate on design best practices across all of Sports Reference.

Why are we hiring for this position now?

A year ago, Sports Reference shifted its organizational structure, moving product decision-making away from the Executive Team and delegating it directly to the people closest to the work: their cross-functional product teams. This shift has been a resounding success, and now, they’re ready to increase their velocity.

Their product teams have been sharing a single, senior UX Designer. While this has allowed them to maintain their high standards, they’ve reached a point where each team needs its own dedicated design partner to move faster and think deeper.

By joining them as a junior UX Designer, you will be the final piece of the puzzle for one of their core product teams. You aren’t just a "resource" being added to a queue; you are a co-leader being embedded into a team to provide the dedicated design focus they’ve been waiting for.

This is a rare opportunity to join a stable, successful company at a moment of high-growth energy. You will have the autonomy to make meaningful decisions while having the safety net of an established design philosophy and a supportive, cross-functional team.

Goals and Tasks for Your First Year (In rough order of importance)

Must-Reach Goals and Tasks

Collaborate with a cross-functional product team to design and advocate for usable, accessible products that challenge us to think of new possibilities while balancing our commitment to functional design
- Partner with product managers to deliver on product outcomes while delighting users
- Work closely with engineers to ensure quality and consistency through the build process, including: Providing design specifications via Figma, unblocking UX-related questions, and regularly reviewing in-progress work
- Coordinate with product marketing to make sure all design elements are in alignment with their go-to-market strategies
Create wireframes, mockups, and prototypes of varying fidelity in order to iterate, improve, and refine design that achieves the best possible user experience
Identify risks that could be mitigated via evaluative user research and propose methods for mitigating that risk
Conduct evaluative user research and usability tests, including translating research findings into actionable insights
Define, track, and report on progress of key user experience metrics
Develop strong relationships with your colleagues in the their product department by regularly participating in meetings, exercises, and team rituals that help them to improve their ability to build valuable, viable products

Nice-to-Reach Goals and Tasks

Collaborate with senior UX Designer to propose and iterate on design best practices at Sports Reference

Qualifications and Skills

A qualified candidate will satisfy the following:

While they are open to candidates outside the continental United States, they prefer someone whose workday can align with continental US working hours.
Evidence that you are capable of meeting many of the goals listed above.
Have a history of getting things done (and done well).
This position will have no direct reports at this time.
If you don’t think your application will have evidence that you can meet all of the "nice-to-reach goals and tasks" above but still are interested in the job and otherwise qualify, please apply. Nobody checks every box—they’re looking for candidates that are particularly strong in a few areas, and have some interest and capabilities in others.

Salary

Salary range starting at $77,000 for U.S. based employees. They are a remote-first company and determine their pay range for this position based on the market rates for Philadelphia, their home base. The salary offered will be based on your experience and skill level.

For candidates outside of the United States, they will calculate a local market rate based on pay for comparable positions in that market and comparable benefits packages when possible.

Annual bonuses are variable and are tied to a percentage of the company's end of year profits and the employee's time worked and salary earned during the year. In the last three years, they have averaged 15% of an employee’s annual salary.

Benefits

Even though they are a small company, Sports Reference has a generous benefits package.

The total value of their benefits package is up to $30,000.
They cover full health and dental insurance costs for full-time employees and their dependent children. They cover 70%-80% of plans for an entire family.
They have a 401k with a match on your contributions up to 4% of your base salary. The 401k has many low cost investing options.
They pay all premiums for company-sponsored life and long-term disability insurance for all employees.
They provide up to $7,000/year in continuing education benefits.
Even if you live in or near Philly, you have the option to work remotely as much as you choose. They generally work a standard workday, but with flexibility to adjust hours within that framework.
Any parent welcoming a new child to their family is entitled to 13 weeks of fully paid leave, and up to an additional 39 weeks at half-time.
Employees begin with 18 days of PTO per year and an additional 8 paid company holidays and accrue sick leave at the rate of one day per month.
They will generally buy you whatever equipment will make you the most productive.
They typically will pay for reasonable moving-related expenses related to your acceptance of a position with Sports Reference. Please ask if you have questions regarding this benefit.
They provide a $66/month remote work stipend to cover the cost of internet access and incidental expenses.
For employees outside the United States, they will work to provide equivalent benefits or additional compensation.

Other Information

Sports Reference's first site was launched in 2000. They have bootstrapped themselves to 42 full-time employees and have no venture capital backing.
They are willing to provide accommodations for candidates for whom the timing or structure of their interview process may be challenging. This may include early morning or evening interview times or provide payment to cover child care expenses if needed. If you are applying for a role where verbal communication is not a significant requirement, they may consider an alternative form of interview as is reasonably possible and suitable. Similarly, if an extended period of internet connectivity is a challenge, they may consider an alternate form of interview. If they invite you to interview, please let them know of any possibly necessary accommodations.
Their typical interview process is described at https://www.sports-reference.com/job-interview-process.html
Sports Reference is a remote-first company. Sports Reference is located in Philadelphia and non-Philadelphia candidates will be considered on an equal footing to those who are local. Presently, all Sports Reference employees are working remotely at least some of the time, but those in the Philly area may work from the office on days of their choosing.
This is a full-time position.
Employment at Sports Reference LLC is at-will and this position is an at-will appointment.
Applicants are generally preferred to have a legal right to work in the United States. Please let them know in your application if you do not have the right to work in the United States. They have hired two employees located outside of the United States, so they will consider foreign applicants.
100% of their merchandise sales support youth sports.

Sports Reference is a growing company, and your work will be highly visible and have a definite and immediate impact (Read about them in the New York Times and The Athletic ($)). They reached over 20 million users each month and served over 2.0 billion pages in 2023.

Sports Reference provides equal employment opportunities to all employees and applicants for employment without regard to age, ancestry, citizenship status, civil union status, color, discrimination, domestic partnership status, domestic violence victim status, familial status, gender, gender expression, gender identity, gender transition, genetic information, immigration status, marital status, marriage to a co-worker, mental or physical disability or illness, military service, military and veteran status, national origin (including physical, cultural, or linguistic characteristics), nationality, parental leave, pregnancy (including childbirth, breastfeeding or medical or common conditions related to pregnancy or childbirth), race (including traits that are historically associated with race, such as hair texture and protective hairstyles, including braids, locks and twists), religion, retaliation, sexual harassment, sexual or affectional orientation (actual or perceived, whether or not traditionally associated with the person’s designated sex at birth), status with regard to public assistance, transgender identity, unfavorable discharge of military status (less than “honorable” but not “dishonorable”), or any other characteristic protected by applicable federal, state or local laws and ordinances, or on the basis of sports franchise preferences.

To apply: https://weworkremotely.com/remote-jobs/sports-reference-user-experience-ux-designer