Principal Architect, Enterprise Architecture

Comcast•Chicago, IL

18h•$165,748 - $248,621

About The Position

FreeWheel, a Comcast company, provides comprehensive ad platforms for publishers, advertisers, and media buyers. Powered by premium video content, robust data, and advanced technology, we’re making it easier for buyers and sellers to transact across all screens, data types, and sales channels. As a global company, we have offices in nine countries and can insert advertisements around the world. Job Summary Freewheel’s Enterprise Architecture team partners closely with our Product and Engineering organizations to translate target business outcomes and client requirements into scalable product designs and technical solutions – delivered on our cloud-native platforms. You will be a strategic member of the architecture group that will provide recommendations and technology design guidance for Product Management and Technology leadership to drive smart investment across our technology portfolio. We are looking for an architect with experience in the Ad Tech industry who can quickly ramp up on our business processes, application portfolio, and data architecture – in order to develop Solution Blueprints, product-aligned Architecture Roadmaps, Reference Architectures and Extensibility Frameworks that accelerate innovation while protecting performance, reliability, security, and cost efficiency. Job Description

Requirements

10+ years in software architecture/engineering, with 5+ years leading distributed, high-scale, low-latency systems (Go/Java/Scala, gRPC/REST, Kafka/Pub-Sub, columnar/NoSQL stores).
Designed or led architectures for ad serving and SSP platforms (preferably premium video/CTV), including unified decisioning (direct + programmatic), mediation, forecasting, and yield protections.
Working knowledge of header bidding, deal types (OpenRTB, PMP, curated deals), supply-path optimization (SPO), and auction transparency.
Built or integrated with DSP workflows (planning, activation, bidding, pacing/optimization, frequency management, brand safety, measurement).
Practical grasp of identity & addressability (e.g., first-party graphs, UID2/PPID concepts, clean rooms), and how buyers/sellers align IDs for targeting and measurement (preferably in CTV).
Architected privacy-centric audience and measurement capabilities—data onboarding, audience building/forecasting, reach/frequency, outcomes—using standardized signals and ID interoperability.
Kubernetes (multi-cluster, multi-region), service mesh, autoscaling, observability (OpenTelemetry), and resilience engineering; hands-on with at least one major cloud.
Strong security and privacy patterns (OAuth/OIDC, tokenization, encryption, secrets, least-privilege, auditability) and FinOps sensibilities.
Hands-on experience with API management and API security standards.
Proven track record turning ambiguous business needs into roadmaps, blueprints, and execution plans; excellent communication with senior product leaders, engineering, sales, and client-facing teams.
Bachelor's Degree
15 Years +

Nice To Haves

Experience with multi-cloud architecture a plus.
Bonus: Experience with live events / live linear ad decisioning, SSAI, or programmatic for live sports/news.
Knowledge of curated supply strategies and buyer curation tools is a plus.
Bonus: Working experience with AI/ML and analytics platforms.

Responsibilities

Serve as the architecture interface between Product and Engineering, converting market and client needs into pragmatic, end-to-end solution designs for Streaming Hub (SSP/ad server), Programmatic Demand (DSP), Audience/Identity, Measurement, and Revenue Science platforms.
Produce Solution Blueprints, Reference Architectures, and Architecture Decision Records (ADRs) that balance speed with long-term maintainability, platform consistency, and extensibility.
Guide Product-aligned Architecture Roadmaps, sequencing capabilities to deliver measurable business value while reducing technical debt.
Provide hands-on design leadership for cloud-native (Kubernetes, microservices, data plane/control plane) systems including reliability (SLOs/SLA), observability, security, privacy, and cost controls.
Shape standards for data contracts, identity, consent, measurement, and programmatic interoperability across buy- and sell-side workflows.
Identify and lead strategic initiatives to grow our technical capability, reducing tech debt, improve software quality and velocity.
Establish common practices for teams to ensure end software and systems interact seamlessly with one another
Advise and support leaders on technical choices and associated risks and rewards on build, buy, extend, customize and deprecate strategies; facilitate architecture reviews; and de-risk delivery with proof-of-concepts and reference implementations.
Reinforce and voice support for grounding principles to ensure architecture designs are stable, secure, scalable, reusable, and operable.
Review and ensure Solution Designs produced both internally and by 3rd party suppliers.
Apply new and innovative ideas to business and technology constraints, champion diversity and innovation.
Develop strategies and guidelines on cloud governance, tech stack selection, capability development and systems deprecation.