Sports Reference: User Experience (UX) Designer

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Headquarters: Remote

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

Job Summary

Sports Reference, LLC is searching for a User Experience (UX) Designer to help us build new products and features that empower users to enjoy, understand, and share the sports they love. We currently serve 20 million (and growing) monthly users through our free, ad-supported Reference sites (Baseball-Reference.com, Basketball-Reference.com, Pro-Football-Reference.com, etc.) and Stathead.com, our SaaS offering that provides powerful search and filtering capabilities for deeper exploration of our vast databases. In 2023, we 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 our jobs website at https://sports-reference-llc.breezy.hr/ and submit your resume and a cover letter for this position. Also, as a postscript (p.s.) at the end of your cover letter, please tell us your favorite sports team logo to demonstrate that you read the job description. 

We 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 we have made in filling the position.  We have provided a general outline of our interview process here: https://www.sports-reference.com/job-interview-process.html 

Our Purpose and Values

We democratize data, so our users enjoy, understand, and share the sports they love.

We value:

• Respect for our users, the athletes we cover, and our team;

• Craftsmanship in building tools and products;

• Reliable tools and services that meet our users’ needs every day; and

• Data democratization. We publish many data sets for emerging and underserved sports.  The New York Times covered our recognition of the Negro Leagues as major leagues in the summer of 2021.  We added women’s college basketball data to our 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, we 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 our 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 us 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, we want to hear from you.

Join us in fulfilling our 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

Our design philosophy is “aggressively functional.” We aim to create experiences that are fast, easy to navigate, and accessible, encouraging exploration without sacrificing speed. Our 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 our 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 our 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: our cross-functional product teams. This shift has been a resounding success, and now, we’re ready to increase our velocity.

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

By joining us as a junior UX Designer, you will be the final piece of the puzzle for one of our 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 our 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 our product department by regularly participating in meetings, exercises, and team rituals that help us to improve our 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 we are open to candidates outside the continental United States, we 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—we’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. We are a remote-first company and determine our pay range for this position based on the market rates for Philadelphia, our home base. The salary offered will be based on your experience and skill level. 

For candidates outside of the United States, we 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 we are a small company, Sports Reference has a generous benefits package.

• The total value of our benefits package is up to $30,000.

• We cover full health and dental insurance costs for full-time employees and their dependent children. We cover 70%-80% of plans for an entire family.

• We have a 401k with a match on your contributions up to 4% of your base salary. The 401k has many low cost investing options. 

• We pay all premiums for company-sponsored life and long-term disability insurance for all employees.

• We 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. We 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.

• We will generally buy you whatever equipment will make you the most productive.

• We 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.

• We provide a $66/month remote work stipend to cover the cost of internet access and incidental expenses.

• For employees outside the United States, we will work to provide equivalent benefits or additional compensation.

Other Information

• Sports Reference’s first site was launched in 2000. We have bootstrapped ourselves to 42 full-time employees and have no venture capital backing.

• We are willing to provide accommodations for candidates for whom the timing or structure of our 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, we may consider an alternative form of interview as is reasonably possible and suitable. Similarly, if an extended period of internet connectivity is a challenge, we may consider an alternate form of interview. If we invite you to interview, please let us know of any possibly necessary accommodations.

• Our 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 us know in your application if you do not have the right to work in the United States. We have hired two employees located outside of the United States, so we will consider foreign applicants. 

• 100% of our 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 us in the New York Times and The Athletic ($)). We 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

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