Principal Engineer - C++

Location: Englewood, CO Salary: $155,000.00 USD Annually - $255,000.00 USD Annually Description:
Senior Software Engineer / Lead Engineer / Principal Engineer (C++)

Location: Hybrid - Chicago, Englewood, Reston, NYC

Level: Senior Engineer (L4), Lead Engineer (L5), Principal Engineer (L6), Senior Principal/Architect (L7)
Employment Type: Full-Time
About the Opportunity

Seeking experienced C++ engineers to help build and evolve the distributed systems powering the future of video advertising.

This team develops highly scalable backend platforms responsible for real-time decisioning, ad serving, marketplace transactions, forecasting, optimization, streaming, and video advertising delivery. Engineers in this organization solve challenging problems involving latency, concurrency, scale, reliability, and performance while supporting critical systems that process large volumes of real-time transactions.

We are hiring across multiple levels, from Senior Engineer through Architect, and are looking for engineers who enjoy building production-grade systems that operate at scale.
What You'll Do

• Design, develop, and support high-performance backend services in C++
• Build and maintain distributed systems supporting video advertising and ad-serving platforms
• Design scalable, reliable, and fault-tolerant architectures
• Optimize system latency, throughput, availability, and performance
• Participate throughout the full software development lifecycle, from design through production support
• Troubleshoot production issues, perform root-cause analysis, and implement durable solutions
• Collaborate with Product, QA, Operations, and Engineering teams to deliver business-critical capabilities
• Develop technical designs, architecture documentation, test strategies, and implementation plans
• Conduct code reviews and promote engineering best practices
• Mentor and guide engineers across the organization
• Influence technical direction, architecture, and platform strategy based on level and experience

Required Qualifications

• Strong professional experience developing software with C++ and/or C
• Experience building backend systems in production environments
• Hands-on experience designing, implementing, and supporting distributed systems
• Experience with large-scale, highly available, and performance-sensitive platforms
• Strong understanding of network programming concepts
• Experience with database-backed applications and data modeling
• Strong knowledge of data structures and algorithms
• Experience working within Linux or Unix environments
• Experience with debugging, troubleshooting, testing, and performance optimization
• Understanding of software engineering best practices, SDLC, and Agile methodologies
• Strong communication and cross-functional collaboration skills

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience with high-concurrency or low-latency systems
• Cloud-native development experience
• AWS, Azure, or Google Cloud Platform experience
• Kubernetes, Docker, or container orchestration technologies
• Experience with distributed caching, databases, and messaging systems
• Familiarity with technologies such as Nginx, Aerospike, Redis, Kafka, Snowflake, or similar platforms
• Experience with Go/Golang
• Experience reviewing code, mentoring engineers, and leading technical design discussions

Highly Desired Industry Experience

We are particularly interested in candidates with experience in:

• Ad Tech platforms
• DSPs, SSPs, ad servers, exchanges, and marketplace systems
• OpenRTB and real-time bidding platforms
• Video advertising and streaming technologies
• OTT and Connected TV (CTV) platforms
• Forecasting, optimization, recommendation, and decisioning systems

We also welcome candidates from other highly scalable and mission-critical environments, including:

• FinTech
• Electronic trading systems
• Telecommunications
• Networking infrastructure
• Gaming platforms
• Cloud platform engineering
• Search and recommendation systems

What Makes Someone Successful in This Role

Successful engineers on this team have experience:

• Building and operating distributed backend systems
• Writing production-grade C++ code for high-scale environments
• Solving performance, reliability, scalability, and availability challenges
• Supporting systems in production and responding to operational issues
• Balancing technical quality, business priorities, and delivery timelines
• Communicating effectively across technical and non-technical stakeholders

Leveling
Level 4: Senior Engineer

• 4+ years of experience
• Owns complex services, features, or subsystems
• Strong hands-on contributor with distributed systems experience

Level 5: Lead Engineer

• 5+ years of experience
• Leads major technical initiatives and mentors engineers
• Drives engineering quality and execution across projects

Level 6: Principal Engineer

• 7+ years of experience
• Influences architecture across multiple systems and teams
• Solves highly complex platform and scaling challenges

Level 7: Senior Principal / Architect

• 10+ years of experience
• Defines technical direction and long-term platform strategy
• Serves as a trusted technical authority across the organization

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