Senior Software Engineer - AdTech Bidding Platform / Traffic Shaping Specialist

Nexxen•Bellevue, WA

38d•$175,000 - $200,000•Hybrid

About The Position

This role focuses on optimizing a real-time auction system within an ad exchange. The primary goal is to make the system smarter about which ad requests to process, reducing wasted load. The engineer will work across the entire technology stack, including a Node.js bidder, data pipelines, SQL for data analysis, and machine-learning models for prediction. The position emphasizes learning quickly, reasoning from first principles, and understanding system behavior. AI fluency is a core requirement, with AI tools expected to be used extensively in development, from data exploration to code generation, with rigorous output checking. The specific areas of work include developing the real-time bidder and its throttling layer for near-zero latency decisions, creating jobs to aggregate traffic performance data for the throttling layer, analyzing billions of bid requests and impressions using SQL, and applying machine learning (specifically gradient-boosted models with interpretability) to predict bid likelihood and inform real-time rules for the bidder.

Requirements

Strong generalist ability to understand and work within unfamiliar systems.
Ability to write and reason about production code with attention to performance and correctness.
Expertise in at least one backend programming language.
Expertise in distributed systems.
Fluency in SQL, or a strong eagerness to become fluent, and experience working with large datasets.
Ability to ask critical questions and deeply understand system behavior.
Fluency with AI coding tools (e.g., Claude Code, Copilot, ChatGPT) and using them as a serious part of the development process.

Nice To Haves

Experience with AdTech / RTB.
Experience with real-time or low-latency systems.
Experience with columnar databases.
Experience with A/B testing.
Experience with ML tooling.

Responsibilities

Optimize the real-time auction system to intelligently decide which ad requests to process.
Work across the full technology stack, including Node.js bidder, data pipelines, SQL, and machine learning models.
Develop the real-time bidder and its throttling layer for low-latency decision-making.
Create jobs to aggregate traffic performance data and bridge analytics with the live bidder.
Analyze large datasets of bid requests and impressions using SQL.
Apply machine learning to predict bid likelihood and implement real-time rules.
Utilize AI coding tools extensively for development tasks, including directing AI, reviewing output, and accelerating work in unfamiliar areas.