Principal Engineer

Adelphi Group•Los Angeles, CA

1d•$200,000 - $240,000•Hybrid

About The Position

dotdotdash, a global experience and innovation agency within Omnicom Advertising Group, is seeking a Principal Engineer for its Creative Technology stream. This is the stream’s most senior individual-contributor engineering role, focused on solving the most demanding technical challenges in real-time 3D, installations, hardware, and live experiences. The Principal Engineer prototypes new capabilities and establishes standards that strengthen the craft, reliability, and consistency of the studio’s immersive and interactive work. This is a technical-authority role rather than a management position. The engineer applies deep expertise in real-time graphics, creative technology, physical computing, and systems for live experiences to critical architecture and implementation decisions. The role also includes hands-on production work, mentoring and technical reviews across teams, research and development into emerging technology and creative AI, and advising on the feasibility of novel work. The position partners with the Technology Director, Creative Technology, and has no stated direct-report responsibilities. Omnicom’s policy requires employees to work in the office at least three days per week, to the extent permissible by local law, unless additional in-office days are directed by the agency or manager. The listed salary range is $200,000–$240,000.

Requirements

At least 10 years of hands-on experience building interactive, immersive, or installation-based technology.
Recognized depth in one or more core areas: real-time and web graphics (including WebGL, three.js, or shaders), creative technology, physical computing, or hardware and audiovisual systems.
Track record of solving difficult technical problems and shipping high-craft, production-quality experiential work.
Strong architecture and systems-design judgment, with deep understanding of real-time performance, reliability, and on-site resilience.
History of setting technical standards and patterns adopted by other engineers.
Ability to prototype and validate new capabilities quickly under uncertainty.
Track record of mentoring engineers and technologists and raising technical standards across teams.
Fluency with emerging technology and creative AI, and a point of view on their value in experiences.
Portfolio or body of work demonstrating shipped, high-craft interactive, immersive, or installation experiences.

Nice To Haves

Agency, studio, or experiential-production background is strongly preferred.

Responsibilities

Solve the studio’s most difficult technical problems across experiential projects, including real-time rendering and performance, complex hardware, and on-site integration.
Set and evolve technical standards, patterns, and best practices for the Creative Technology team.
Prototype and validate new platforms, frameworks, interaction techniques, and tools before production or live-show use.
Make high-stakes architecture and implementation decisions for critical experiential work.
Review critical technical decisions and code across teams.
Mentor engineers and creative technologists across the organization and share technical knowledge.
Partner with the Technology Director, Creative Technology, to evaluate approaches and reduce risk on difficult builds.
Build reusable components, libraries, and internal tools to improve team speed and reliability.
Profile and optimize work to support real-time performance, reliability, and on-site resilience.
Lead research and development into emerging technology and creative AI, turning promising ideas into usable capabilities.
Contribute hands-on to demanding builds and deliver production-quality real-time and installation code.
Advise pitches and proposals on the feasibility and effort involved in novel creative-technology work.
Document architectures, patterns, and learnings for the studio.
Encourage experimentation, play, and continuous learning across the engineering organization.